Top Five Gags: The Navigator

Like Our Hospitality, The Navigator is a film where, really, the best I can do is narrow my favorite gags down to extended gag sequences; each is filled with way too many good ones to only choose specific moments, and even as it is, there are some fantastic sequences that didn’t make the cut.  Nice problem for a comedy to have!

Searching for Company

Waking up on the empty ship, Rollo and Betsy both search it top to bottom for another soul.  Unfortunately, despite being able to hear each other calling, they can’t manage to actually walk or run in one another’s direction.  In an astoundingly-choreographed sequence, both characters traipse all over the ship with an incredible talent for just missing each other, and when Rollo finally does stumble onto Betsy, the sequence is perfectly capped by his renewal of the marriage proposal she turned down earlier in the film.

Breakfast Fail

The second breakfast scene is amazing, too (I love Buster’s labor-saving inventions so much,) but you can’t beat this one for sheer calamitous hilarity.  Neither Rollo nor Betsy have ever so much as poured their own lemonade, and their trials in the kitchen are a hoot.  Highlights include Rollo turning to big knives and carpentry tools in his futile attempts to get at canned food, fun with eggs, and Rollo’s reaction to Betsy’s coffee.

A Passing Ship

Really, I’m mostly interested in what happens after Rollo and Betsy give up trying to signal the other ship, but I can’t not mention Rollo in the life boat trying to tow the Navigator.  The best part, though, is Betsy’s subsequent efforts to get Rollo out of the water and back onto the ship, efforts which nearly drown both of them.  This is another sequence with a perfect ending:  Betsy fainting in Rollo’s arms at the bottom of the rope ladder, and his panicked look up at the camera as he realizes how far he’ll have to carry her.

Diving-Suit Adventure

So many fun gags here mixed in with the suspense of repairing the ship underwater before the islanders board it.  A lot of them are pretty cartoony, but they work well.  I like the “caution” sign Rollo puts up around his work area, his duel with a swordfish, using a lobster as a cutting tool, and my favorite, “filling” a bucket with water, “washing” his hands in it, and then “dumping” the water out.

Tiny but Deadly Cannon

So simple, but so fantastic.  Who doesn’t love the sight of Rollo desperately trying to run away from a miniature cannon that he’s accidentally tied to his foot (don’t ask how – it’s Buster)?  His flailing and running around is great, and I love it when he figures out how to use it as a weapon against the islanders.