The Boat (1921)

This film for a silent short has a lot of elaborate sight gags, more than you'd expect. There are a lot of foreshadowing scenes of how funny & elaborate Keatons films would become here.The film has an opening sequence which reveals the boat interior set used in the film. An interesting way to open.Keaton is the father with a wife & two young sons who is building a boat in his basement. When he finishes his project, he names it Dam fino & finds it will not fit out of the basement door. So he enlarges the basement door, & then hooks the boat up to the car & pulls it out- pulling the house down with it. Remember, in this era prior to special effects this pulling the house down is an elaborate gag. They are really pulling the house down.Next- Buster & his family are trying to launch the Dam fino & have all kinds of trouble doing it. When it finally goes off the ramp, the boat & Buster promptly sink.With no explanation, in the next sequence the boat is actually floating. Keaton & one of his sons do a routine involving the setting up the smokestack on the Dam fino & trying to find the kid inside the stack which is good physical comedy that is a prelude to what Keaton would do later, & would train Lucille Ball how to do.Classic in this - the first use of "cruise control" with the boat going without a pilot while everyone is below. The below decks often seem much larger than the above decks.The voyage the boat goes on has a lot of perils, many of which are amazing sight gags for this era. In the end, the Dam fino sinks & the family are all floating in a bath tub. Then, the tub starts to sink, but stops when it hits the bottom of shallow water.The family walks up on shore together & one of them asks dad where they are. Without needing lip reading skills- Keaton mouths to the camera "Damn if I know". A clever ending for a movie full of impossible sight & physical gags.

This is not a bad short film...it's just not a cinematic one. Not everything we see here can exclusively be expressed in the film medium.On the other hand, there are some first rate sight gags. Buster is placed in this is as a 'builder', who destroys things far more often than he creates them. Hole in the side of the boat? Nail a pancake over it. Pancake falls off and springs a leak? Drill a hole in the floor for 'drainage'. Your boat capsizes over and over? Nail your shoes to the boards. Who sent the distress signal? "Dam f i no!" The rotating boat gag is extremely influential; the 'zero gravity' scenes in "2001" can claim lineage from this. But the gags only work as isolated events; nothing really ties this all together, and therein lies the movie's weakness.

This is a very good Buster Keaton silent comedy short from 1921. However, unlike most of his other films where he is either co-starring with another guy (such as Fatty Arbuckle) or going solo, in this case everything he does, he does with the family in tow.Buster and his wife are building a boat in the garage. Unfortunately, it's much larger than the opening and so Buster is forced to cut the garage door opening larger. You discover it still isn't large enough as the boat rips the entire side of the house off and destroys most of the home. Now THAT'S a sight gag! Once out of the house, dopey Buster doesn't fare much better. He manages to lose his car off the end of the dock, and later once they've been at sea a while, the boat sinks but our family somehow survives.The movie excels because it has a real plot--it's not just slapstick. Also, the stunts, when they are done, are BIG and very impressive!

A BUSTER KEATON Silent Short.THE BOAT which Buster's family builds and launches immediately tries to kill them.This funny little film is an unusual one for Buster, in that he's already quite domesticated - with wife & children - when the story commences. The viewer is supposed to read Buster's lips to get the film's final joke.Born into a family of Vaudevillian acrobats, Buster Keaton (1895-1966) mastered physical comedy at a very early age. An association with Fatty Arbuckle led to a series of highly imaginative short subjects and classic, silent feature-length films - all from 1920 to 1928. Writer, director, star & stuntman - Buster could do it all and his intuitive genius gave him almost miraculous knowledge as to the intricacies of film making and of what it took to please an audience. More akin to Fairbanks than Chaplin, Buster's films were full of splendid adventure, exciting derring-do and the most dangerous physical stunts imaginable. His theme of a little man against the world, who triumphs through bravery & ingenuity, dominates his films. Through every calamity & disaster, Buster remained the Great Stone Face, a stoic survivor in a universe gone mad.In the late 1920's Buster was betrayed by his manager/brother-in-law and his contract was sold to MGM, which proceeded to nearly destroy his career. Teamed initially with Jimmy Durante and eventually allowed small roles in mediocre comedies, Buster was for 35 years consistently given work far beneath his talent. Finally, before lung cancer took him at age 70, he had the satisfaction of knowing that his classic films were being rediscovered. Now, well past his centenary, Buster Keaton is routinely recognized & appreciated as one of cinema's true authentic geniuses. And he knew how to make people laugh...