Keaton’s Uneasy Years With MGM

Silent film great Buster Keaton may not have been treated well when he moved over to MGM as sound spread through Hollywood. But MGM finally does well by him now--via MGM/UA Home Video.

The company, which has been releasing a virtual history of early Hollywood in its exploration of the first talkies, gives Keaton a beautiful showcase in “Buster Keaton: The MGM Talkies� ($140), a new five-disc release that gathers up seven of his MGM talkies, each running about an hour and a quarter.

Too bad that the films in this beautifully produced collection, complete with handsome notes and annotated chapter stops, don’t live up to the packaging.

Still, second-rate Keaton can dance pratfalls over any number of contemporary films masquerading as first-rate productions from second- and third-rate comic aspirants. And there are some delightful unexpected moments in these movies released between 1930 and 1933.

“Free and Easy� could well be a modern-day bumbling agent trying to carve a career for any contemporary beauty contest winner--this one just happens to be from Gopher City, Kan. There are some amusing moments with movie stars of the day, including Robert Montgomery, popping in here and there, and topical references to actors and directors all over the boards. Lionel Barrymore and Anita Page are featured.

“Doughboys� (1930) turns out to be a tedious look at a World War I bumbler, with Keaton given too little to do and everyone just talking too much and doing too little.

“Parlor, Bedroom and Bath� features the talents of Charlotte Greenwood and Reginald Denny, but again Keaton isn’t given the chance to show what he can do.

“Sidewalks of New York� reunites Page and Keaton and it’s one of Keaton’s better talkie vehicles as a hapless young millionaire trying to reform street gang toughs.

It’s obvious MGM had no idea what to do with Keaton. The studio finally teamed him up with a comedian made for the sound age, Jimmy Durante. The two made a strange combination in which Durante usually overwhelmed the fragile Keaton, who in these MGM features always seems to find himself lost in a sea of cackling, often meaningless jabbering. “The Passionate Plumber!� (1932) is a contrivance that offers too much Durante and too little Keaton. In “What! No Beer?� Durante once again overwhelms Keaton in a mediocre Prohibition comedy about incompetent bootleggers. Only in his scenes with Phyllis Barry does Keaton show what might have been. It was his last starring feature in America.

The year before, he had made one of his best talkies, “Speak Easily.� The script finally gives both Keaton, Durante and leading lady Thelma Todd good scenes to play and they make the most of them. For some reason, MGM always turned Keaton into a dim-witted somebody and this time it’s a hapless professor who gets involved with a Broadway show troupe. It’s really Durante’s world, but Keaton is surprisingly good here, and silent film and early talkies star Todd makes a convincing talkie vamp. This one makes the whole package worth getting.

Ultimately, the Buster Keaton package is not a stellar collection. Keaton proves that even a comic actor with impeccable timing and instincts still needs good material, or at least material that suits him, to be a success. Nonetheless, the distinctive sad-faced, downtrodden master of the silents is worth watching. Just don’t try to take in all of these in one sitting.

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Robert Montgomery dominates the screen but doesn’t easily dominate Norma Shearer in the 1931 film adaptation of Noel Coward’s “Private Lives.� The MGM/UA laser release, in full-bodied black-and-white ($35), doesn’t miss a beat of the nonstop banter between the two divorced spouses who re-encounter each other on honeymoons with new spouses.

If there is ever any doubt how it all will work out, it doesn’t matter. The clever repartee is vintage Coward, and it doesn’t get much better. Look for Jean Hersholt (the name usually comes up at Oscar time) and Reginald Denny to add spice to the sophisticated goings-on.

A bonus is a 1934 MGM short called “What Price Jazz?� which may prove to be more a slice of history than ever might have been originally intended, showing how the white Establishment regarded black music at the time.