The last of the independent features made in the prime of Buster Keaton's career, STEAMBOAT BILL, JR. is a large-scale follow-up to The General, substituting a Mississippi paddlewheel for the locomotive, and replacing the spectacle of the Civil War with a catastrophic hurricane. Keaton stars as William Canfield, Jr., a Boston collegian who returns to his deep-southern roots to reunite with his father, a crusty riverboat captain (Ernest Torrence) who is engaged in a bitter rivalry with a riverboat king, coincidentally, the father of Willie's sweetheart (Marion Byron).Following the failure at the box office of The General, Keaton took one more stab at a big budget comedy on his own terms, and the result was Steamboat Bill, Jr. Keaton transposed the action from a pair of trains, to a competing pair of paddle-wheel steamboats, and added a bit of furious Mother Nature to up the ante. The film's pacing is infallible and each gag lands precisely when it should for maximum impact.
Keaton plays the city-fied son of a hard-bitten steamboat captain. Dad is none to pleased with his son's dandy ways and attempts to toughen him up to no avail. Just as Buster is getting ready to go back to New England, a massive hurricane strikes and provides endless opportunities for Keaton-style physical comedy, and boy does it ever deliver. There is a subplot regarding a Romeo & Juliet romance between Buster and the daughter of the rival Steamboat captain, and some friction among the captains as well as a sequence in which Buster must rescue his father from jail. All of these are merely pretense under which Keaton took some of the most outrageous chances of his career in some literally death-defying stunts.
While the train crash in The General may have been the most expensive single shot in film history at the time, it had nothing on the destruction Keaton wrought in the name of laughs for Steamboat Bill, Jr. The Great Stoneface does a lot of his trademarks small gags with simple mannerisms, he also does a decent number of spectacular pratfalls that broke up me when I watched them. However, the real stuff worth paying attention to are the big stunts, the hurricane stuff, which is insane would never be attempted by any major star these days.
The most famous stunt is the falling facade. During the hurricane, a dazed Keaton wanders through the town which is being torn asunder by the winds. He stops for a moment to gather his thoughts just as the entire front wall of a house falls down on top of him with lucky Buster standing right where the open window hit the ground, saving him from certain death. This was all real, and if Keaton had been a few inches off his mark, it would have crushed him. He said later that he was out of his mind when he did it, or he never would have tried it.
The film is packed with wonderful gags and a charming little story. There are very few intertitles to explain the on-screen shenanigans, but they aren't really required. Besides, you'd have to stop laughing long enough to read them for the intertitles to be of any value. Steamboat Bill, Jr. is a classic by any reasonable metric, and the fact that it failed at the box office puzzles me to no end. After this film, Buster left behind United Artists and signed with MGM. He only really made one more decent film after that, before being conscripted into studio pictures in which he had little input. Due to that miscalculation, Steamboat Bill, Jr. is Buster's last real gift to the world, and what a gift it is.
The Disc:
Kino Lorber's presentation of Steamboat Bill, Jr. is outstanding. The image is clear and sharp for the most part, with only very minor print damage issues. The audio tracks, available in DTS-HD MA 5.1 and Dolby stereo are also very crisp and clear, though I'm not a particular fan of either of the scores included on this disc. However, regardless of my personal taste, I cannot fault the disc's A/V quality. Top notch stuff from Kino.
Steamboat Bill, Jr has several significant extra features, though none is as substantial as the alternate version of the film included. The alternate version is the entire film told through different camera angles and takes. There isn't much of substance changed, but it is interesting to compare the two versions. Kino offers a brief featurette on the differences and side-by-side comparisons for the audience. Also included is a 15 minute visual essay on the making of Steamboat Bill, Jr. which helps to give the film context, explains the conditions under which it was made, and some editorial choices that had to be made in order to keep it going. The last big extra is a one-minute long montage of pratfalls titled, "Why They Call Him Buster" created for Kino's DVD restorations a few years back. It's brief, but hilarious. Also included are a still gallery and a couple of different audio versions of the song Steamboat Bill, that inspired the film.
Kino Lorber's region free Blu-ray of Steamboat Bill, Jr. belongs in every cinephile's collection. The film has never looked or sounded better, and the content is an absolute treat.
Stay tuned next week for our look at the recent double feature disc for Go West and Battling Butler!