Last Five Columbia Shorts: Buster Keaton

I’ll level with you.  There’s some good stuff in Buster Keaton’s Columbia shorts – Mooching through Georgia is lots of fun, and I’ll never not love it when Buster pulls himself up one leg at a time and momentarily “sits” in midair, like he does in The Taming of the Snood – but there are some very unfortunate clunkers as well.  By and large, the remaining shorts represent the latter.

Nothing but Pleasure (1940)

Buster and his wife go on a cross-country road trip to swap their old car for a newer model; the venture is, naturally, fraught with mishaps.  This one’s not bad, mostly just a little boring.  There’s a new edition of the “drunk wife” scene from Spite Marriage, and I like the extended sequence of Buster trying to get out between two parked cars.

The Spook Speaks (1940)

Buster and his gal pal are hired to housesit for a magician – not to watch over his house, but the tricks inside it (he’s convinced that someone’s trying to steal them.)  It’s a nice enough “spooky romp,” but much of the humor is very generic.  Tons of trapdoor gags, which are pretty fun, and all manner of double takes and scared reaction shots.

His Ex Marks the Spot (1940)

To avoid being bankrupted by alimony, Buster invites his ex-wife to live with him and his new wife; the ex’s good-for-nothing boyfriend tags along, and the whole thing goes about as well as you’d expect.  Definitely not a fan of this one – it dips too far into the trap of making Buster out to be a chump, and the non-Buster characters are all varying degrees of obnoxious. 

General Nuisance (1941)

Buster joins the army to be near the nurse he loves, and to get even nearer, tries to get himself injured on the base.  I get a kick of the extended version of the “Buster refuses to disrobe for his physical” scene from Doughboys, and there’s a dance in the second half that, while apropos of nothing, is nicely amusing.  Pretty meandering, though.

She’s Oil Mine (1941)

If General Nuisance is reminiscent of Doughboys, She’s Oil Mine is essentially a remake of the first two reels of The Passionate Plumber.  Seriously, exact same plot – Buster is a plumber, and  his client’s hotheaded boyfriend mistakes him for her new lover – and many of the same gags.  Some nice work by Buster, especially in the duel scene at the end.