Another
old-Hollywood movie about older
Hollywood, which puts it along similar themes as Sunset Boulevard but telling a very different story. However, while Buster is featured prominently
in a few scenes doing slapstick, I’m not really a fan of how it’s done.
Mike
Connors, a studio prop man with big ambitions, discovers a talented understudy
on a Broadway stage one night and presents himself as a Hollywood bigshot in
order to sign her. He brings the
actress, Molly Adair, back to California with him, and together, the two experience
the ups and downs of the movie industry.
Under Mike’s direction, Molly’s star rises, but he earns a reputation
for being difficult to work with. Is she
benefitting from his vision? Is he
glomming onto her coattails? Will either
of them survive the pitfalls of fame, or later, the transition to sound?
From what
I understand, this film is kind of a fictionalized biography of Mack Sennett
(the man behind the Keystone Cops and the Bathing Beauties, among other things)
and Mabel Normand, the leading lady who came up with him. I don’t know much about Sennett and can’t
speak to that – mainly, I know that Fatty Arbuckle got his start with him and
that Buster used the Keystone Cops in his classic short Cops – but as a film, it’s fairly enjoyable. Although it hits a lot of obvious biopic beats,
like the scrappy climber rising to stardom and then experiencing a fall from
grace, it hits them well for the most part, and the dynamic between Mike and
Molly is interesting to me. There’s the
makings of a love connection there, but it’s also two people who’ve thrown
their lots in with one another to tackle the industry, and sink or swim, they
mean to do it together.
Where it
gets less interesting for me is Buster’s involvement. As I’ve said before, I don’t find Molly’s
silent comedies that Mike directs (and which feature Buster) very funny. Maybe they’re representative of Mack
Sennett-type comedies – again, I haven’t seen any, so I don’t know – but
they’re definitely not representative of Buster’s work. Molly gets her start in comedy accidentally when
Buster (her onscreen beau) fumbles to figure out how to confront her rival and
throws a pie that misses him and hits Molly.
From there, it’s mostly just a lot of pie-throwing and some later
bungling-cop bits. Not that I’m opposed
to either pie-throwing or bungling cops.
After all, Buster created numerous hilarious cop gags in his films, and
here, I do enjoy how he winds up to throw a pie like a baseball. But for the most part, the “gags” are the
pie-throwing or the running-around in and of themselves. The scenarios don’t build or pay off; they’re
just “there.” And while a bunch of cops
tripping over each other might get a smile from me, it’s nothing compared to
the way I laugh at the cops in The Goat,
Daydreams, Cops, or Neighbors. With my limited experience with
non-Buster-related silent comedy, I don’t how typical this type of film might
have been. Is the point that Molly is in
these dumb comedies but becomes famous because the public eats it up anyway? Or is this supposed to be good-quality
comedy? Would this have been considered comedy gold in the ‘20s in general,
or by 1939, had Hollywood lost sight of what good silent comedy looks
like? I can’t tell.
I also
don’t like the fact that these scenes present Buster as a would-be dramatic
leading man who literally stumbles into comedy with his onscreen missteps. It’s entirely possible that I’m being
overprotective, but just like with “The Silent Partner,” I’m not fond of the
suggestion that comedy just happens by accident. While I’m guessing that the film isn’t
actively suggesting that Buster Keaton was nothing more than a klutz, it also
doesn’t acknowledge the precision, skill, and imagination that goes into great
slapstick. It’s like, drama is an art
you create, but anybody can just throw together a comedy. And Buster’s silent career most certainly
proves that that’s not true.
Warnings
Drinking/smoking,
some slapstick violence, and thematic elements.
No comments:
Post a Comment