Life with Buster Keaton: Unknown Episode Title 3 (1951)

I’d remembered that at least one of Buster’s TV shows in the ‘50s featured a community theatre, and in going through the episodes again, this is the first one to bring it up.  Buster doesn’t run it like I’d thought (maybe that crops up in one of the episodes I haven’t rewatched yet?  Neither show is a particular bastion of continuity) – instead, he’s brought in woefully unprepared at the last minute, which is how most theatrical endeavors for Buster’s onscreen characters tend to start.

The sporting goods store is beset by impending catastrophe:  one of their creditors has shown up and is threatening to shutter the store.  The owner’s daughter (from what I can tell, she was an addition for Life with Buster Keaton – she was in a previous episode as well, but I didn’t see her in any of the Buster Keaton Show episodes) argues that they’ll be able to pay their bills once the community theatre production she’s in opens.  Unfortunately, the leading actor quits in a fit of pique after a mishap involving an arrow (because of course that’s what happens.)  Buster is tapped to fill in, but he quickly proves he might not be the best basket to put all your theatrical eggs in.

This, along with the exercise one, is probably one of my favorite episodes from either show.  Buster’s theatre gags are always reliable, and this story is no exception.  The show-within-a-show starts off with a great sequence of Buster struggling to read the cheat sheet for his lines as he’s hit with an onslaught of fake snow, and his hapless stage business throughout makes for good fun.  There’s the usual stuff – ill-timed entrances, wrecking havoc on the set and props – as well as a number of amusing bits that are more directly incorporated into the action.  My favorites include Buster trying to slip a ring on the daughter’s finger while she’s wearing oven mitts and, of course, trying to pull taffy on a telephone.  The play itself also gets in a few good bits; I like the stilted, incredibly obvious exposition the daughter feeds to the audience.

I also want to mention a little thing that comes up here that totally cracks me up.  I really like how people – such as Buster’s boss and the customers in the store – treat him like he’s basically still his “little fellow” character from the days of his silent shorts, or even further back to the Fatty Arbuckle days.  Buster would’ve been in his mid 50s at this time (and looks it,) but people still call him “boy” and act like he’s a young whippersnapper.  This is done without a hint of irony, and besides really amusing me, it gives the show a kind of timeless quality, like we’re being transported back to those days.  These episodes, naturally, are a far cry from the work Buster was doing back then, both for pure comedy and sheer physicality, but I do like that sense of being brought a little bit out of time while watching them.

Life with Buster Keaton: Unknown Episode Title 2 (1951)

This is a fun one.  I admittedly have very little experience with early television, so I can’t speak to how common or uncommon this might have been at the time, but I like how the show is just such a free-for-all.  Yes, there’s a little bit of familiarity – often opening on the sporting goods store location – but this is a show that does whatever it pleases in terms of plot leanings.  Between this series and The Buster Keaton Show, we’ve seen an “African” expedition, some rough ‘n’ tumble fighting, and now, in this episode, a noir-ish gumshoe spoof.

Buster has to stay late at the store to accommodate a delivery, and while he’s waiting, his imagination runs away with him thanks to a detective serial on the radio.  He envisions himself as Sam Keaton, a purportedly ingenius detective who is much more impressive in theory than in execution.  Naturally, a mysterious plot involving a knife in the back, a dame, and a Maltese canary falls in his lap, and he’s hot on the case.

Sherlock Jr. is of course going to be the first thing that comes to mind here, and the basic set-up is fairly similar, with Buster dreaming of himself as a detective, but the two works are different enough that I wouldn’t really say this episode borrows much from that film.  The major difference is in the genre that’s being sent up.  While Sherlock Jr. is a suave gentleman detective, Sherlock Holmes with just a dash of James Bond, Sam Keaton definitely takes his cues from film noir.  So even though both plots involve a mystery and an investigation, the atmospheres are completely different.

Overall, I’d say it’s an amusing send-up.  The episode does seem awfully padded, like they couldn’t stretch out the concept to a full 25 minutes – there’s some weird stuff with puppets in the middle that really feels like playing for time – but during the parts when it’s more on the mark, it does its job pretty handily.  I like the running gag of Buster narrating the dream in that classic noir detective style, with just enough winking thrown in to make it fun; I especially enjoy the bits where Buster narrates something definitively, realizes that what’s happening onscreen doesn’t match what he said, then hastily rephrases it.

The actual mystery itself isn’t much, a bit of mysteriousness and a lot of film nods wrapped around a flimsy excuse for Buster to play detective.  Because that’s really the point here – Buster playing a hardened gumshoe positively straight but making a hash of it to get us to the comedy.  Nothing too substantial here, but it’s a nice bit of fun.

Life with Buster Keaton: Unknown Episode Title 1 (1951)

As it happens, the next Buster TV episode I watched is also sports/fight-related, drawing a little on both Battling Butler and, to a greater extent, Palooka from Paducah (since this is wrestling instead of boxing.)  For what it’s worth, this episode was labeled part of Life with Buster Keaton, not The Buster Keaton Show, and it isn’t the same story as was used in the previous Buster Keaton Show episode, but the similarities do make it feel a bit repetitive.

Buster’s working at the same sporting goods store from The Buster Keaton Show, although he now has a similarly-bumbling coworker who’s obsessed with boxing and “switches” on and off into a fighting machine at the sound of the bell (I have yet to rewatch any of the other Life with Buster Keaton episodes available online, but I’m assuming this guy either only appears in this episode or is only obsessed with fighting here.)  Anyway, a disastrous incident at work – ‘cause this is Buster we’re talking about, there’s always a disastrous incident at work – leads two professional wrestlers to challenge Buster and his coworker buddy to a fight.  Lured by the promise of a $100 payout, win or lose, Buster plans to accept and then go down quickly in the first round, but the wrestlers have something else in mind.

I don’t mind Buster reusing ideas from his older films in his later stuff, but there’s not as much to interest me here (although, that’s at least in part because of how recently I watched the Buster Keaton Show episode that climaxed with a fight in the ring, which isn’t this episode’s fault.)  While there are some funny bits here – Buster and his pal showing up to the fight in Roman centurion costumes is silly, and Buster’s confusion with wrestling’s more staged aspects is funny – the humor feels less inspired, more slapped together.

The best part for me is probably the opening sequence at the sporting goods store.  That really was an excellent choice for a major locale on a Buster TV comedy, because it offers an endless supply of props that Buster can use for comedic purposes.  Here, we get some fun gags from Buster trying to wrap up a fishing pole, utterly failing to put up a “cinch-to-erect” tent, and being attacked by a canoe suspended on ropes from the ceiling.  The humor still gets a bit sloppy in places, but for the most part, the scenes in the store feel the most Buster-ish to me.  With the comedy in Buster’s later projects, it seems like it works best when Buster has a lot of room/resources to play around with and an ostensible reason to be messing with them, and Buster haplessly trying to pitch outdoorsy equipment to customers provides a good excuse for that.