Relationship Spotlight: Bill & Willie Canfield (Steamboat Bill Jr.)

This is my first Relationship Spotlight for a Buster Keaton movie, and I think it’s fitting that, rather than any of the romances, this father-son relationship is the first down the pipeline.  Despite the Romeo and Juliet-esque framework of the plot, Buster’s Willie has the most interesting dynamic by far with his gruff dad.  (Some Bill-Willie spoilers.)

The film kicks off with Willie’s first meeting with his father in years – he went to Boston for school at a very young age, and the two haven’t seen each other since.  (And even aside from that, I’m not entirely sure what the Canfield family situation is.  Willie appears to be in at least semi-regular contact with his mom but not his dad.  Don’t know if Bill and his wife are divorced(!) or if his work as a steamboat operator just keeps him away from home.)  The meeting, though, is pretty bungled.  Willie assures that Bill will easily recognize him by the white carnation in his buttonhole, but every man at the train station seems to have taken up the same floral fashion statement, and Bill is increasingly at a loss to find his son.  Meanwhile, Willie’s own flower, unbeknownst to him, has fallen off and he keeps holding up his unadorned buttonhole toward prospective fathers for inspection. 

This mishap is fairly indicative of Bill and Willie’s relationship as a whole:  despite the best of intentions on both sides, they just can’t connect.  When they do find one another, Bill is fairly horrified by Willie’s beret, striped jacket, wide trousers, and “baseball mustache” (as per Buster’s description, nine hairs on each side.)  He’d expected a strapping, rough ‘n’ tumble lad after his own heart, and delicate, bohemian Willie doesn’t fit the bill.  Their early interactions are marked by Bill trying to make Willie more presentable among Bill and his fellow river rats – the mustache and beret have to go, and one of Bill’s top priorities is getting Willie work clothes for the boat (the natty ship-captain get-up Willie ends up with isn’t exactly what he’d had in mind.)

At every turn, Willie seems to disappoint Bill.  The boy clearly has no idea what he’s doing on the boat, Bill’s attempts to teach him repeatedly end in disaster, and worst of all, his girlfriend is the well-to-do daughter of Bill’s professional rival.  Bill is inflexible on all counts, berating Willie for his mistakes and trying (unsuccessfully) to forbid him from seeing Kitty.  Willie’s slightly prissy city-boy affectations embarrass a man’s man like Bill, and Willie’s ukulele puts Bill at his wit’s end.  He first tries to keep it out of sight, shoving it unceremoniously in his back pocket to cover it with his coat, and later stomps on it when he catches someone laughing. 

Given all that, it may seem odd that I’m spotlighting this relationship.  The thing is, even though there’s so much going against them, both men are genuinely trying.  The hat shop scene, in which Willie keeps trying to sell his dad on a ridiculous checkered cap, is funny, but it’s also kind of sweet in that, despite Bill’s gruffness with him, Willie keeps expecting him to approve of Willie’s outrageous fashions.  Bill may blow up at Willie and drag him around, but the second anyone else laughs at or lays a hand on him, Bill is immediately at Willie’s defense.  What’s more, he coaches Willie to defend himself, never assuming that Willie’s small size or clumsiness will keep him from being able to hold his own.  He eventually comes to see the value in Willie’s cleverness and ingenuity, and when the chips are down, Willie is behind his dad all the way.  That’s why I like them; they’re not perfect and they get a lot wrong, but both of them are working at it and getting better all the time.