Last Three Educational Shorts: Buster Keaton

Here are the last of the sixteen shorts Buster Keaton made for Educational.  They’re a mixed bag (Three on a Limb is especially unfortunate,) but as with most things Buster, there’s still some good to be had. 

One Run Elmer (1935)

Buster thinks his luck is turning around when someone starts building opposite the gas station he runs in the middle of nowhere, but it turns out to be a rival gas station.  This one’s pretty fun – I like Buster’s ramshackle station, the game of dueling prices he plays with his foe, and the many humorous ways all his plans backfire on him.  The title refers to a baseball game that factors into the short later, and there are some really nice gags in this sequence, many of which were inspired by hijinks Buster and his buddies pulled during the celebrity ball games from his Hollywood days.

The E-Flat Man (1935)

Buster and his girl get more than they bargained for when they try to elope; by accident, they’ve sped off in the car of a wanted gangster, and they become convinced that the girl’s parents have sent the cops after them.  It’s a nice, amusing little film that has some funny chase stuff and puts the mistaken-identity angle to good use.

Three on a Limb (1936)

This is my least favorite in the whole Educational bunch.  Buster plays a scoutmaster who falls for a pretty drive-in waitress, but he has his work cut out for him when he finds out that both of the girl’s parents have already picked out a different man for her.  It has quite a bit of the more cringey comedy that sort of looks down on Buster – even his scout uniform makes him seem like a schmuck, looking so much less mature than his romantic rivals.  The only bit I really like involves a wary Buster trying to figure out where to sit down in a living room where a territorial dog has claimed all the seats.