The
last of Buster Keaton’s MGM talkies, What! No Beer? is pretty light on the good and
heavy on the bad and ugly. To be honest,
the things I’d heard about it made me wary about seeing it at all; however,
completist that I am, I couldn’t not
watch a Buster movie I could get my hands on.
So, here we are. It’s not Free and Easy (I’m not sure if anything
else on earth is Free and Easy,) but
it’s not good.
In this
film, Buster plays yet another Elmer, this one a quiet taxidermist in love with
the gold-digging Hortense. His desire to
fill his pocketbook and win her affection leads him to begin a joint venture
with his pal Jimmy (once again, Buster’s partnered with Jimmy Durante.) The end of Prohibition has just been
announced, and Jimmy plans to hit the ground running with a ready-to-go
brewery. Unfortunately, they jump the
gun and start brewing before the repeal actually goes into effect, and they
soon find themselves the targets of temperate cops and rival bootleggers alike.
The Good – Not a whole lot. Buster does
get in a pretty smart save for the climax, and there’s a seduction scene that’s
amusing (though the one in Parlor,
Bedroom and Bath is a lot funnier.)
Really, my most glowing recommendation is that it’s not as bad as I
feared it would be.
The Bad – This is the most unbalanced
Buster-Durante partnership yet. Although
I can’t blame Durante for it (more on that later,) his Jimmy just runs
roughshod over Buster’s Elmer at every turn.
It’s all loud, boisterous jokes and very little physical comedy, and the
overall plot is a bit “farce meets frat-boy comedy in the ‘30s.” It’s not a terribly interesting story, and
Buster doesn’t play a terrible interesting character. I wouldn’t say he’s actively dumb for the most part, just
accident-prone, but he doesn’t really feel present throughout much of the
film. He’s just kind of there.
Which leads into…
The Ugly – It was after this movie that MGM
fired Buster, and you can see why. His
real-life drinking was completely out of control at this point, and it shows
onscreen. There are scenes in which his
speech is noticeably slurred, his performance is disinterested and sluggish
throughout, and it’s clear that his coordination and athleticism aren’t what
they ought to be. Like I said, it’s not
as bad as I thought it’d be – he’s not blatantly drunk or hung-over from start
to finish, and there are only a handful of scenes where it’s evident – but it’s
still painful to see. He loved movies so
much, but by this point, that love of performing, creating, and innovating had
been so thoroughly beaten down that he just couldn’t keep it together anymore. It’s why I get why MGM let him go, because
this obviously wasn’t sustainable, and in the grand scheme of things, it was
probably best for Buster as well that he was taken out of that situation. It’s also why, although I’m not much of a
Durante fan and don’t like seeing him featured so heavily over Buster, I can’t
fault him for it here, because Buster just wasn’t in any condition to carry
this movie. Durante did everything he
could to make it work, and he wasn’t getting a lot of help. If you watch this film, I recommend having
one of Buster’s better later projects on standby (my personal suggestions would
be Grand Slam Opera or The Railrodder,) so when it’s over, you
can remind yourself that Buster got himself cleaned up, built his old talent
and timing back up again, and went back to making some pretty delightful
comedies. Hang in there, Buster – it
gets better.
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