Blank Check with Griffin & David - The Cameraman / Spite Marriage

Episode Date: June 11, 2023

Our Buster Keaton series comes to a conclusion as his period of creative independence does, with his first two features for MGM: THE CAMERAMAN and SPITE MARRIAGE. The former? Debatably a meta-masterpiece, with a Chinatown setpiece for the ages and one very adorable monkey. The latter? Well, you can see the downward spiral start to take shape. In this episode, we fill in the later years of Buster’s life and career, give our final Keaton rankings, and attempt to cheer Ben up after a very demoralizing restaurant experience. This episode is sponsored by:  MUBI (mubi.com/blankcheck) Indeed (indeed.com/check) Stamps.com (CODE: CHECK) Join our Patreon at patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter and Instagram! Buy some real nerdy merch at shopblankcheckpod.myshopify.com or at teepublic.com/stores/blank-check

okay and then I held up an intertitle that said podcast. All right, that was pretty good. Fine. So you were out. You were out of stuff. We finally did that joke. That's the joke everyone's been waiting for me to make. Yeah, we finally did it.

For six weeks. I wasn't out of it. I was saving that. You're out of stuff. I'm not out of stuff. You're out of juice. I could, watch me. I could fucking do it right now.

You're like, remember that tech company that was like, we made like a great juice pressing machine. Juicero. And then people were like, just squeeze it with my hand, bro. I just get the packets and I squeeze it with my hand. This is not, I am no mere juicero machine. No, of course not. How dare I imply that?

I never was. Watch me. I could do this. You must always podcast forward, never backward. But I didn't want to do that. No, you wanted to hold up a little intertitle that said podcast. Yeah, and it was funny and everyone loved it and they cheered. It was the thing they were waiting for for six weeks.

I can't hear anything you're saying right now because people are cheering too loud. Thank you. And like Joaquin Phoenix is sort of, he's holding his thumb like this, you know? He's like, yeah, yeah. They're all like, yes, thumbs up. Fred Heschinger, the new Joaquin phoenix is that who yeah they barry dropped out barry dropped out can i say something what i'm kind of pro that i like barry keegan it's maybe he's like signing on to every project i maybe am worried about like jude law syndrome with this guy you know what i

mean where it's just like how about you do one to two movies a year rather than be like the weirdo in three movies or four movies every year right hessinger also a blankie is he yeah a listener but hello right in favor of that uh but but yes yes i mean ben is uh a scowling like why why does he listen yeah great question yeah i don't know something wrong with it did he hit his head very hard yes unfortunately oh so he's resting in bed yeah it's like the idea that hitting your head makes you stupid yeah oh no always funny right you forget your name um uh barry kegan's also a very very uh uh specific performer like there's no one like that's the thing right you're putting a whole dollop of like anchovies into the

dish and there's a lot of i love him a lot of range he can apply himself very different ways but he's not like jude law where it was such an obvious gimme of like just slot him into everything let's have him do everything sure sure right yeah and and with all respect to key again i think we all agree joker was a bit of a bust there are things he should maybe not do i can't be mad at him for that because he didn't have the time or you know the necessary runway no to do something like to have you know to like where i'm like oh he this is what he came up with correct but also like that's what he came up with yes you know anyway

hi fred hi fred come on blank check that this has been the key feel better feel better sorry about your head sleep well please uh text me craven uh goss Yeah, he's playing the chameleon. He's in Craven. He's the chameleon. He's playing the chameleon. Listen, this has been an episode of the Keegan cast. Keegan cast. And now welcome to Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin.

I'm David. So fast. So fast it almost was, you almost couldn't hear it. Exactly. I'm Griffin and then hold up title card. Funny. This is a podcast about filmographies. Directors who have massive success early on in their careers

and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. And sometimes those checks clear, and sometimes they bounce. Baby! And this is a miniseries on the films of Buster Keaton. It is called Podcast Junior. And today we've gotten to our last episode.

This series has been focused on the ten features that Buster Keaton made under Buster Keaton Productions, his independent run financed by Mr. Skank. Joe Skank. That took him from total independence to sort of

supervised independence under Metro as part of Skank's position there. Yeah. To now finally, these final two episodes are going to track his move to MGM. Yes, the two films he directed for MGM before he was then

just pushed into being a star. We slot you in where we like you. Right, right, right, right. And his final two silent films, correct? Correct. Like after this he is in talkies yes right yes yes yes these are his two violence final his silent these are his violent cyanide comedies uh-huh and uh although spite marriage is him dipping dipping a little bit of

a toe into sound now right off bat, Ben has said he thinks that both of these movies stink. Producer Ben. He didn't like them. I walked in here, Griffin, on time, of course, 10 a.m. Great job by me. Let me just say this for the record. Okay. All right. All right.

All right. Go ahead. Go ahead and say it. I beat you here. I had a track record i think i i think it was maybe three or four six wow he had the number he was gonna he was trying with i think i can confirm it was six it was six yeah it was six yeah and i happened to fall back asleep oh so no so wait so the the running total is what? Like 412 to six? Correct. But I'm saying...

It's like you're the fucking Washington generals. You get a couple baskets and you're like, oh, the general's on a streak here. I'm just saying, look, I moved. I live two blocks away from the studio. We're just getting their buckets of glitter. I'm walking distance. I'm saying we might start evening out.

We just have to do the show for another eight years. You've moved closer. We do the show for another eight years. You've moved closer. We do the show for another eight years. It might even out. Yeah, you've actually moved closer. Although you've usually lived closer to our studio, but not since we moved to this. This is the closest I have ever lived.

Oh, you live very close now. I live very close. So close that we really can't be disclosing where this studio is now. Nope. Ben cut some references out of previous episodes. Did he? Okay. Yep.

Yeah, but I walk in. Yeah in Ben's finishing up Spite Marriage And he's just like And I was with him on I was like, yeah, you know, Spite Marriage Not great But then you revealed you didn't like either of these films No I think Cameraman's a little masterpiece

He loves Cameraman I was relieved to see you agree with me Listen, there's fun stuff in it. And I understand that in Buster movies, right, he's kind of hitting very similar stories. Yes. Sure, you mean types, character types. You don't like his character type in this movie.

I just was not in the mood to deal with smug bullies. Ben, can we talk about it on mic Yeah let's talk about it So Ben is also he's steamed He's grouchy Because he got basically upsold On a fancy steak By a waiter

At a hip New York restaurant I'm sorry So he's pissed off I think about like all smug sort of you know they're better than you they're above you because he basically was at this cool ass place and the waiter was like well the cut of beef you really want is the special and he didn't disclose the how much it cost mucho dinero way too much for what I got was this last night

yeah so I watched this movie cameraman first yeah this morning yeah and it's it's like this bully

jerking around Buster and I just got so pissed I just wanna I wanna break this down for a second please do every one of these movies

has some smug bully. Yeah, there's always a rich guy or, you know, alpha guy. Yeah. His problem wasn't, you know, if you said, I hate a cameraman, but in my defense, yesterday, some fucking bewildered cameraman fucked with me on my walk home. I could understand this movie hitting a nerve. It was like really specific. Right.

You're supposed to relate to Buster in this movie. The point is you're supposed to hate this smug bully. I could understand this movie hitting a nerve. It was like really specific. Right. You're supposed to relate to Buster in this movie. The point is you're supposed to hate this smug bully. I know. And you're going, I'm too triggered by the smug bully because a waiter got me to buy a more expensive steak last night. Yes. Fair enough. It makes sense.

Okay. Look, I'll say this. Yeah. I sympathize. I think Ben is the wronged party. Okay. Look, I'll say this. Yeah. I sympathize. I think Ben is the wronged party. Sure. This steak that he got, and yes, it was for the whole table. It's not like he was personally given this steak, but still, I checked the price on it.

It's a lot of money. Yeah. If you're a waiter, even if you've been told, like, oh, you know, don't say that. It's gauche to say the numbers out loud. You might just want to say, it's it's it's an expensive item or you know but this is a this is a high end you know you know just so that you can give the opportunity for the person to be like how much for what i paid for it should have been the fucking opening of flintstones you wanted them to destabilize the table when they dropped it over for what wanted it right over for what I paid.

Yeah, I mean. You wanted a dinosaur leg, essentially. Yes. Funny, funny, funny. Look, I know this podcast has already become a 25% syndication of old Doughboyz bits. Sure. We just rerun old Doughboyz bits by us describing them and saying they were good. And now I'm doing one from the episode you and I were on, David.

Yes. Well, wait, which was the Eataly episode? Which episode was... Eataly. What was the bit? It's not even a bit. This is just... Here's a fucking incredible waiter

who got a great ass tip that night, okay? We're at Eataly. We're trying to order a lot of stuff. I'm with Mitch and Weiger for the Doughboys podcast in LA at the. at the Eataly David at the New York one. And Mitch was like, it's truffle. We should try something with truffles on it. Right. And we were trying to balance out dishes. And there was like we were going to get a pasta and then there was a steak you could add truffles on to. And we tried to order that. And our waiter said, said you know the surcharge on the truffles is itself more expensive than this pasta that has truffles on it so if you get the truffle pasta instead of that pasta and get the steak minus the truffles, you're saving money. Right. So here's the thing. That's how a fucking server.

Here's the thing. And Ben's going to tell you. Yeah. But I think his waiter kind of tried to pull that trick of like, look, this extra, it pays for itself in sides. Yeah. You know, it was trying to kind of do the like. The sides?

He's like, it comes with fries and a salad. He's like, I mean, it's a good deal. Right. He said it was a good deal. Right. He said it was a good deal. This guy just sounds dishonest. Should we say how much the steak was? Yeah, we could say how much it was. Yeah, we're not going to be saying.

Everyone will unsubscribe. Listen. Anyway, he didn't want the fancy steak. He got the fancy steak. And now, so if there's any fancy men sure who are pulling on an mgm being gatekeepers so you don't like that part of it either you don't like the you don't like the actual behind the scenes narrative and we're it's it's also it's the story set in the city so i really can relate i could really put myself sure but you're the buster in this story correct

just trying to have a damn steak okay which is fine it's fine uh listen buzzer keaton said signing up with mgm was the greatest mistake of his entire career it was the thing that kind of killed him um absolutely he is convinced as it's not like he was completely swindled here. Like his, you know, his business was in decline. Like he was, he kind of needed a raft to jump to. This is my question. What other options did he really have at this moment? Let me look at the dossier here, but yes. Okay, look.

I ask this rhetorically. Buster is, of course, making feature films independently. Yes. They're getting distributed by whoever, but by Metro or MGM or whatever, and UA eventually. But the key basically is that he makes them himself.

And he has his own company. He has his regular crew. He's sort of an autonomous unit. Hands the movies over to Skank. But the films he makes are not produced efficiently, and they are not cheap. so it's not like he is the reliable old buster keaton machine just pumping out movies at x price right and they're gonna make y price like some of them are hits some of them are less

so yeah some of them are made for an okay budget some of them cost too much money or take too long to make and he's constantly trying to to push the medium on technical levels. He's trying to constantly come up with things that people haven't seen before. He's increasingly looking for a sense of verisimilitude that does not come easily or cheaply. And on top of that, his basic process is like 60%

pre-planned, 40% improvised. Which is a nightmare to the person writing the checks. Because they go like, I have no idea what the fuck this is even going to end up being it's hard to come up with a shooting schedule it's hard to have an actual budget going in so mgm is looking at that and says well you're going to make movies for us and they're going to cost about 250 000 like we're going to put you in a budget category they say to him you will be the third highest paid person

on our payroll at our studio. You're a star. You're a star. You'll be the third highest paid person we have, but it's kind of classic. It feels like such an echo of how these studio execs still talk today, where they were like,

we at MGM can solve the Buster Keaton problem. If Buster comes to us, his budgets will be smaller and he'll make four movies a year. They were just so confident that they could get this guy on rails, right? This is easy. We can control him. We control him and the quality will stay good and people will like the movies.

We'll just tell him to be cheaper and more structured and work faster. So, they are saying to him... movies we'll just tell him to be cheaper and more structured and work faster um so they just like the writers love of work we'll get them to end the strike because they'll be so tired of not they love being underpaid like making money they love i don't even know if they like making money i think that's a lie they may not uh you know it's very gauche to make money oh it sucks yeah what do you spend it on? Some fucking shitty steak? Yeah, exactly.

I should mention it did come with steak sauce. Oh, yeah, right. Okay, so you made your money back. You're right. Uh, because you went off and sold that thing on the street, right? You took the steak sauce. You flipped it, right? This is house steak sauce. Yeah.

Um, so they're saying you're going to make movies around a quarter of a million dollars, and you're going to make four a year. Not two a year, which is what you're currently doing. However, Buster moves into MGM, and then MGM, or him, or whoever, someone realizes four a year is unrealistic. Right. And so they're like, let's go to two a year, but if you're going to do two a year, your budgets are going to go down. So you're going to have to make these quite cheaply. And yeah, you can keep some of your crew, but not all of them.

You know, essentially, it's just kind of like, look, the great days for you are over. You don't get to just do whatever you want with whoever you want for how long you think you need. They want to streamline. they want to uh uh streamline they want to automate it a little bit and a big part of it is there's going to be oversight now you don't just go off and do whatever the fuck you feel like you know which at a certain point one wonders what did mgm even want i mean you know but they probably like you say they're just like what do do you mean? We're smart. We can fix this.

But it's not just the entertainment industry. You just read these stories constantly of there's a company that is successful, right? Right. And then a much larger company buys the company and goes, we think we can reduce costs. Yeah. We think we can reduce costs,

increase profits. We see a lot of inefficiency here, but you are still Buster Keaton. So we can still make money off of you. Right. They go, we can just make this cheaper and more profitable. And then within a year, they go, suddenly this is not making money for us.

And you're like, well, this was working before you entered the picture. Even if it didn't work every single time. It wasn't totally working. It evens out. But the other thing, of course, with Buster is, even if he hadn't gone to MGM, the talkies are coming.

Totally. Everything's about to change. Like, who knows what would have awaited him. This is my big question, is just like, he needed to go to a studio at this point. Most likely. Right?

Skank was not re-upping. Yeah, no, unless he could find some other rich guy to, you know, essentially front him money in exchange for the hopes of profit. Right. Yeah, obviously.

Unlikely. What he should have done was was and he was never much of a businessman he should have done what chaplain had done 10 years earlier he needed to form a united artist right or or you know stick with the existing united artists and you know but i look i i don't live in 1928. I don't know what the landscape is or whatever. Look, he wasn't a mogul, and he also didn't think of himself as an artist. He thought of himself as a worker. But then again, he was always trying stuff. Oh, totally. But it's a fascinating dichotomy with him.

But I don't know if he would have been in a better position going to any other studio. It's hard to say. I'm not knowledgeable enough he would have been in a better position going to any other studio. It's hard to say. I'm not knowledgeable enough. I have no idea. Obviously, MGM is sort of the king studio. Yes. And really is for the next 30 years. Yeah.

But certainly in the days of Louis Mayer. I kind of think this, a variation of this fate would have befallen him at this point. Now, there's some other issues. He doesn't play well with others, really. He doesn't want to live on the lot. So he moves into like a bungalow that's kind of off the lot right doesn't go into the studio he doesn't interact with louis mayer which they put their foot down and said like you're moving into a fucking dressing room everything he tried to do was basically like i'm living off campus

right right he's like sort of like i'm not part of this community he just was such an independently minded guy and he liked his own crew and whatever and he said you know then you're not going to get He's sort of like, I'm not part of this community. He just was such an independently-minded guy, and he liked his own crew and whatever. But, you know, then you're not going to get what you want if you're not rubbing the shoulders of the fancy man. So I think he just immediately set the wrong tone with them. And he goes, here's how it works. You give me my unit.

Have a payroll of guys. I have my cameramen. I have my gag writers. I have my prop makers and we're just working on stuff constantly and they're like that's not how this works you work with our guys we have under employ you're sharing resources across the studio sure so irving thalberg who is the wunderkind head of production at mgm he's only in his early 20s. You can read about him. It is an incredible tale. He is put in charge of Keaton,

set up his first movie, please. His first proposal is a sort of Charles Lindbergh-esque story of a pilot doing a transatlantic flight with a fading burlesque beauty queen. They wanted Marie Dressler. So, you know, Buster doesn't like that story kind of likes the idea of working with marie dressler uh pitches him pitches a story back

that's like steamboat bill jr except she's like the raggedy old aunt rather than the mean uncle character okay i mean the not mean uncle the uh you know grizzled dad yeah yeah right um said it during the civil war said it on like a wagon train and again i'm like buster the weakling sure after the you know sort of silly boy and we're going across the prairie you know and stuff happens thalberg thinks about it keaton kind of knows he's not into it yeah okay so then they have a new idea okay what if instead of let's go back to that sort of idea but what if he's a cameraman instead of like a pilot um and uh the original concept was still going to have a transatlantic flight yes um wasn't there was a whole thing where he got involved with the mob there was

sort of a mistaken identity thing i mean yeah everything I was reading was that they kind of were pitching a lot of plot to him. And he was sort of like, and this is an early moment. Yes, they wanted gangsters. And Keaton keeps being like, no, like, get all that out of here. We have to strip this down right because his whole thing was just like you know i'm now working with guys who have no experience in comedy who think they can tell me what's going to be funny they think they know what sounds like a funny setup for a buster keaton movie and i know in practical reality you want this thing as streamlined as possible you want as little narrative fat as possible you want room to discover gags i'm going to read this buster quote to you because it is so devastatingly good thalberg was a fine judge of light comedy and farce appreciated good slapstick whenever he saw it on screen no truck driver ever guffawed louder

at my better sight gags than that fragile intellectual boy genius that's thalberg yeah nevertheless he lacked the true low comedy mind which is sort of what you're saying, right? Like any man who must concern himself with mass production, he was seeking a pattern, a format. Slapstick comedy has a format, but, you know, he's basically just like, he doesn't understand. It's like math. Yes.

Right. The simplicity of that. You see the geometry of how the thing is going to work, which is, look, there are very few uh uh executives uh you know high level studio people who are genuinely creative and even fewer who are funny and understand how comedy works but they make the most money in every era and so they're obviously the best people indispensable um no uh but eventually whatever this all gets hammered into the the cameraman is the idea uh and so they do start working on drafts of the script um and all these

mgm creme de la creme writers come in and keaton is basically like 22 people at one point like we're weighing on the script right and they would keep complicating the plot. Gangsters, Salvation Army street bands, Tammany Hall politicians, longshoremen, and kind of like the sound of this one, lady gem thieves. Cool. Maybe bring in one lady gem thief. Yes.

And then the executives, look, it's the classic tale. Too many chefs in the soup, you know, or whatever. I think the difference for me is that cameraman feels like him trying so hard to stand his ground in the face of all this meddling that what comes out of it is like such a a simple streamlined focused movie right because he really has to fight for what he wants and like narrow in on his vision whereas and you know not to jump ahead but it's a relative success it is well received yeah the movie actually mgm likes it and i think he goes great so i proven myself they'll give me more leash on the next one and instead they tighten the leash and the second he feels the leash tighten on spite marriage,

it's like he's done. Right? It's just, you just feel that he just gives up. And, you know, and then it goes on to his MGM talkie career

after this where it's just like the light is kind of gone from his eyes. He's drinking more. He's not creatively involved. Yes. To skip ahead here.

But no. Edward Sedgwick is the director they assigned him for these two films who's a guy who comes from a very similar background to him was also part of a vaudeville act with his family growing up has been on stage since he was a child transition of being behind the scenes is kind of a roscoe arbuckle type physically is much taller and bigger than him apparently they also both loved

they were both baseball buffs yes they bonded over that so there's like this beauty where you're like this feels like for all these years where where even skank would assign him some new director who he would always fight with yeah and push out he's finally got a guy to kind of share the chair with who he really is simpatico with and who gets it and isn't fighting you know yeah i i think they they didn't mind they shot it in new york i think that was complicated there's there was like a week of new york shooting and then i think sound stages were in l.a right um but uh i think yeah they enjoyed a five-day new york shoot um where there's parades all the time in those days every day dude you know howday new york shoot um where there's parades all the time and those days dude you know how in

new york there's if you walk up broadway sort of from wall street there's this like um there are these plaques kind of like hollywood walk of fame style of every ticker tape parade there ever was parade walk of fame and like there's there's like an embedded plaque in the sidewalk for every single ticker tape parade. Like in ascending order. And I loved it. I used to walk out. I forget what there's a name for what the avenues of the Avenue of Heroes or whatever. They used to fucking throw one of those every other week.

Yeah. Because at a certain point you hit like the 80s and then it's basically like did a team win a championship? They got a ticker tape parade. Sure. That's it. You know, it used to be like, I don't know, some guy like did a great job cleaning a building and they'd be like, ah, come on. Yeah, but also. We have so much ticker tape we got to get rid of.

No one had a Roku. What else were you going to do? Exactly. You can't just fucking stay home and binge Never Have I Ever. And so we got another parade. Great. That gives me something. It's just so funny like there

were there were like seven a year now it's like basically just like the new york giants that's it yeah oh that okay so ticker tape is the printout yeah from the stocks from the stock ticker they had all this fucking paper they had to get rid of it somehow so you know they rip it up the president of tunisia confetti yeah if the president of tunisia came this year we'd just kind of be like yeah sure bathrooms are over there buddy 1961 it was like clear the streets we should set a standard no cars we should set a standard we should start throwing a ticker tape parade every time we release a new episode we gave the new york mets a ticker tape parade for entering the National League in 1962.

They hadn't even played a game yet. They could use all the encouragement they could get. Why not send them off in good fashion? I swear to God. Have a good season. They used to like, if someone like took a shit without needing to wipe, they would throw them a ticker tape parade. Anyway, look, I support all ticker tape raids to be clear i support the president of tunisia unless he was bad let me check click on him an interesting anecdote

this is a long wikipedia page i don't know if i can weigh in um buster was still so fucking famous and iconic at this moment of course he's sort of like right at the bell curve where his fame's about to dip. He's a national name. Yes. Chaplin and Harold Lloyd, as I point out in the past, both had characters who involved a sort of disguise.

Their persona on screen did not look like them in daily life. Yes. Harold Lloyd, when he took the glasses off and changed, it was like a Clark Kent Superman. Same with Chaplin. Of course. Chaplin has the fucking mustache. He doesn't have the mustache on.

Dives his hair and all this shit. Right. He would put the bowler hat on his feet. You know, completely different vibe. Two bowler hats. Or one, both feet in one hat.

Both feet in one hat. Yep. He'd hop around. Or he'd slide. They go to film a couple days in New York and Cedric was like it was impossible yes hey keaton yeah people were yelling it from the the windows and you're not again like you said there's no roku yes people are bored right and there's also look there's no

pluto tv there's no sound right they're not fucking up the takes with the sound but they're reacting so what they're like swarming him they're fucking up the shots right and they were like there was no way for him to disguise himself he's buster keaton all the time that's exactly what he looks like can i tell you something yes yesterday i uh got out of the subway all your troubles for so far i suppose so uh i get on a bike, and I'm biking through Park Slope, home. Okay. Brooklyn neighborhood. And I'm going up a street, and then I see, oh, there's a film crew on this street. Okay. But the lane's not closed.

I keep going. Pete Davidson, America's funniest man. Of course. Of course. America's most beloved comedian. Yeah. Is shooting something in front of an ice cream truck. Is it an ad?

Sure. You know, who knows what it is. But it's Pete Davidson, just him, and like a guy with a camera. Okay. And I will admit, somewhat embarrassingly, that as I biked by, I went, hey, Pete, just because I thought it was funny to do that. Wow.

Usually I don't care about celebrities at all, but I was just kind of like, this is funny. And I also knew I was moving, so I would really just whiz by. So I said, hey, Pete. Who I don't know, he looked like Pete Davidson. Regular. Exactly like Pete Davidson.

He's kind of hot. He's kind of hot, but also you're kind of like, are you sick? That's the Pete Davidson look. No one else looks like him. Do you have lyme disease uh first first season of fine obviously yes yeah the first season of the tick yeah we filmed a lot in the streets of new york yeah filming in new york is expensive and difficult but we thought like uh we thought good production value whatever right it does look cool yeah

season two uh folks might notice there is almost uh there's very little exterior work and where there is exterior work is in very kind of desolate far out areas in season two mostly you're in the the base you know the headquarters right and when we were like outdoors we were like under a bridge or in like an alley or something and it was because we would film so much in the streets of harlem in the first season and takes would get fucked up by people walking by and going, hey, Tick.

I'd do it. Hey, Tick. It was that though. It's exactly what you said. Like people would just bike by and they go like, hey, Tick, looking good. And the show had not aired yet. It was just people knew the iconography

from the past versions. It's a cartoon. But it was like we're filming episode two where no one should know that he exists. Right. and the amount of takes that were blown by that it was insane how often it would happen and you can't even be like hey don't do that the guy's already gone yeah biked off immediately just a bunch of fucking david sims going hey they're filming law and order on my street recently and i was so tempted. It was like an early morning shoot. I was so tempted before leaving the house for the day

to just have the Law and Order theme blasting out the window on a loop, on repeat, and just ruin their shoot. Yeah, that's funny. There was one time I saw when Jerry Orbach was still on the show. Legend. He was filming a scene, and a bunch of kids rode their bikes in front of the camera and then stopped and went,

Yo, you're the guy from Law & Order. Hey, man. And he went, ha ha, yes I am. And it was the most charming thing I've ever... He's the best. He responded with like sort of Lumiere-esque... As he should. He's the greatest of them all. Yes, I am. He might be the greatest New Yorker. He has a block named

after him, which I think is deserved. Jurebuck Way? Yeah, probably. It's usually a way. It's up in Hell's Kitchen. I've talked about my fucking brother's Jurebuck bit. Yes. We can't talk about this. We have to talk about the camera. It exists in the archives. Alright. As you say, yes when harold boyd

removed his glasses he melted into a crowd buster keaton that old stone face everyone wanted a piece of it yes uh then they go to la they shoot for 33 days um mgm is hopeful that that will be chill but uh you know buster's not used to their kind of thing. As he says, you had to requisition a toothpick and triplicate. Yes. Everyone's hassling me. You know, and it seems like it's just a little stressful.

A lot of clashes with the studio. Yeah, but I think this one's a little bit of a like pressure creating diamonds thing where it's like he had it in him one time to fight against this, to get what he wanted. But went way over schedule, but

maybe the most iconic sequence in this movie, I would say, is the changing room sequence, right? It's a simple sequence. He's stuck in a changing room with a big fella, he's a little fella, they keep bumping into each other. He reuses this in What No Beer. I referenced in...

What? No beer? I'm sorry. In What? No beer? He redoes this exact sequence in a voting booth. A polling booth. Clever.

Sure. And I even feel like later in his career when he's doing a lot of TV segments and things like this, this became one of his routines. Right. I'm trapped in a tiny space with another guy. But this one, yes, is incredible

and it's like an absolute, why wouldn't we just do this? It was invented on the spot by Keaton and Cedric and a couple of writers, Clyde Bruckman and Lou Lifton. Yeah. Classic Keaton writers.

So like some of this stuff, they're coming up with on the day. It's, this is what I love about this movie is it feels like it does not have the big sequences. It does not have the big movements of his other films in the same kind of way, by and large. It's just sort of ingenuity of,

in every very basic low-stakes situation, what's the funniest thing I could come up with right now? They were hoping the film would cost $250. It ends up costing $362. So, you know, not perfect. It makes about $750? It made $800,000 worldwide. Big asset.

More money in foreign markets. So he's turning into a bit of a Sly Stallone. He is. But you're getting less of that money back probably. Wasn't a bomb, but the profits were not huge for MGM. Thalberg did think it was hilarious. Thalberg, in the years after, would screen this to his comedy writers

to say, here is a perfectly structured comedy. Study this. Right. He used it as a teaching tool so much they wore out the print they had. Wow. That's cool.

And this was a big one that was considered lost for a while. Yes, that's true. This was an actual lost film, especially because MGM had this huge fire that destroyed a lot of their films in the 50s. And this was one of the films presumed to be lost then. And then there was a combination of,

they ended up finding a print in France. A damaged print in France, and then another higher quality print somewhere else. Over the years, they've combined prints. They've put them together. It was incomplete for a while. Now, I think we pretty much have all of it. But the other wild thing is there was...

It was about eight reels, 70 minutes. The best print I think they found in France was missing one segment. And it was because they had repurposed it for some MGM package film. And when they did that, they literally took that section out. Sure. Why not?

Yeah. Don't bother copying it. Who's going to watch this whole fucking thing again? Yeah. So, the cameraman. Yes. Buster is, at the beginning of the film, a tintype photographer.

And he has a crush on a secretary who works for MGM. The setup is so simple. You start with really exciting newsreel photographers on the front lines of the war, right? And you're showing, this is the kind of photography we're used to seeing

play before our pictures, our A pictures, right? You go, then there's another type of cameraman. And here he is, this lowly guy in the middle of the city street, asking for a dime to take someone's portrait. Right. On essentially a tin ashtray.

Right. He catches the eyes of a pretty woman. I think it's another thing I like about this movie. And I will admit, a lot of my fondest moments, this was the, as I think I said in our first episode, this was the activator movie for me. This was the one I caught on TC said in our first episode, this was the activator movie for me. Right. This was the one I caught on TCM that turned me on to Buster.

So it holds a soft spot in my heart because it's the one that made him click for me. Sorry, I said it stunk. No, it's fine. I don't think it's the best one, but I think it's obviously his last great movie. Yes. And I do think it's in the top tier.

Now I have, and I'm sure you have not, I've not seen like his educational shorts that he made later i've seen some of them i know i haven't seen everything he's done but i've watched but that's really all and then he did a few like weird european he did a run at columbia yeah he did a run the educational picture shorts um i mean what there's like but the Columbia ones he's never a director and rarely a writer right yes the educational shorts those are shorts

obviously the Railroaders his final thing which he did for Canada it was a campaign to promote their own railroads right and that one's actually really fun it's him he's very old but he still got his ingenuity. Yeah.

And it's called The Railroader. It's like 30 minutes or whatever. But then there's an amazing one-hour documentary called Buster Keaton Rides Again that is watching the process of him generating bits. That's cool. And I highly recommend watching that. It was just re-released on Blu-ray. Yeah. But I think it's out there on the internet.

But yeah. Okay. But wait. The cameraman. it's out there on the internet. But yeah, okay. But wait. The cameraman. So he wants to impress this lady. So he buys a film camera for all his money. Well, he sees her in the crowd. Who is she?

He follows after. She finds out she's the secretary at a newsreel company. MGM. It's MGM? It's MGM. There's this smug asshole type of guy who'd upcharge you on a steak. Right, a smug asshole with a big ribeye on a platter. Yes.

Which with fries and steak sauce. Yeah. And burpees. Right. You're basically making a profit at that point. And look, the ice in this water ain't free, but we're giving it to you for free. I mean, I guess they got some bread, too. And they were willing to lift the lift the uh the chair tax right because

usually they charge they paid for those chairs ben yeah no the chair magic those chairs out of existence yeah right i mean yes right do they include air conditioning on your on your check at the end of the ac on the ac was not on it was kind of a cool night. It was a cool night. It was a cool night last night. Kind of in the 50s. They charged us a courtesy fee and that they were sort of nice. It doesn't sound like they were that nice. They weren't at all. Okay, all right, all right.

So there's a meanie. Yeah, but here's a thing I love about this movie. She's immediately pretty charmed by him, right? Yes. There isn't the sort of challenge of... She's encouraging. She likes him. She's giving him tips the whole movie.

There's this feeling of, unlike a lot of the Buster movies where there's sort of an ultimatum thrown at him, the other guy really wedges himself in the center. There's some authority figure, a father, a boss, you know, the girl's father, whatever it is,

that demands that he do a thing to prove himself. Or in the worst Buster movies, I think it is the woman demands the thing and it makes the female character less likable when she's that much of a status obsessed sort of, you know, what have you. Right. I like in this that she's kind of immediately charmed by him and he just feels like at first I should do this to impress her and then i think he really kind of likes it he's doing this out of the joy of doing this the discovery of doing this i think this movie is in so many ways buster making a film about his relationship to filmmaking the discovery of it you know and his experimentation with what you can do as a medium and every time

he fucks up she kind of pulls him over and goes like do this right right i'm giving you the inside track i'm helping you out i think she's really sweet she's very sweet yes um foster is not good no his job he fucks everything up he's always double exposed i mean look also it's hard the 20s film camera shit like this is very technical. But we've been doing this miniseries now for six weeks, right? Sure, yes. Yes, absolutely.

Breaking down, how do you pull off these insane shots? How do you do it? How do you do it, right? You have this sequence where he comes back with his first roll he shot, and they screen it in the screening room for the head of the MGM Newsreel company, and they all laugh at how bad it is. Right. the screening room for the head of the mgm newsreel company and they all laugh at how bad it is right and everything you're showing is basically one of the tricks that buster has used to create one of his most famous sequences it's a lot of double exposure stuff and things like that it's double

exposure it's things being cranked backwards right right yeah right but of course but anyhow you shoot a newsreel no it's just the facts jack but this is what i this is what i'm saying the the vaguely kind of like autobiographical memoir equality to the film is it sort of like all those special effects in the early days the pre-digital days of film came about basically by people discovering things by accident they would mess stuff up and you go wait a second that's a weird effect interesting if you fuck it up on purpose if you don't let this part of the image get exposed, right? I do think there's something here to like, this character is more hapless than the actual Buster Keaton, the director.

But it's like he's, by hook, by crook, by mistake and by chance, learning the mechanics of what a camera can do. I also think... I'm trying to win Ben over on this movie. He's very fun toting the camera. Like, you know, he... It just lends to, like, hapless, you know, harried buster, right?

That he's got this big fucking thing he's lugging around on his back. You know, you're with him. Like, he's a good, hard-working boy who doesn't know what he's doing. He drives the fire truck, you know. He're with him. Like, he's a good, hard-working boy who doesn't know what he's doing. Yeah, and it's just like... He drives the fire truck, you know, he goes to the baseball game. This is how comedic...

Well, we're not going to breeze through these things that quickly. Oh, I'm so sorry. This is how comedically resourceful he is, though, is he's just like, if I have to carry this camera with me in every scene, I will find something funny to do with it. Okay, well then... The tripod's got three legs.

Yes. It's legs yes it's long it's heavy you know anytime he's trying to talk to someone who gets tangled in something right that's what i'm saying right yeah exactly right right okay well come on then the first thing is the fire right that's the yes the warehouse is on fire or whatever yeah and so you know come on let's talk about some of these scenes right uh yeah but the joke there is that just he rides the fire truck home right correct he misses it good joke he fucks it up yeah right uh the baseball scene is really straight because this is also like him he he gets there the wrong day it's an away game yes he shows up to an empty yankee stadium it is is he i was about to say what's

the state of yankee stadium yeah old yankee right mean, this is one of the only... Oh, yeah. Because now... Right. Well, there's been three I believe Yankee Stadiums. Yes. I think this is old. This is the house that Ruth built. Okay. No, he just... There's no one there. Decides to play baseball by himself.

It is a thing that I think the other Buster Keaton characters don't necessarily ever display, which is this guy has creativity. Right? This is the story of like an artist being activated. He's not just a chump.

Right. He will try to find, right, the sort of hard way around it or whatever. But there's some combination of he is doing this for his own amusement. Right? But then also he's like trying to find something worthwhile to film. And here is this like incredibly well

observed pantomime of every player in a baseball game. And he's just doing it all. Trying to catch people stealing bases. It's also just clever way to use the location. Like it just looks cool. I just think there's something very kind of sweet and poetic to it.

I will say this. Were you watching the Criterion release of this? How did you watch this film? No, I rented it on iTunes. Oh, you did? Who even knows? Okay, so then I'll say this. There's a Criterion disc of this that has Spite Marriage as a special feature.

Uh-huh. The iTunes version of it, I don't understand, I don't know why this happened. This is, these two films are the only Buster Silence that are not in the public domain. Because they're actually owned by MGM.

Right. And they're also, they're not 100 years old. 28 or 29? Yeah, they're 28. Or this is 28, maybe Spite Marriage is 29. So there's a Criterion disc.

Correct. That is copyrighted by warner brothers um previously it was on a dvd that was part of the turner classic movie present series that one had the score that i believe is now on the itunes i had a very nice score i love that score so fucking much it's by a guy named arthur freed who was part of frank zappa's band ben and has in later years and did a lot of production and has in later years done a handful of silent film scores. And this one is so good.

And for whatever reason, is not on the Criterion release. And the Criterion release score is good. And it's a full orchestral score. But there's something very charming and kind of like bittersweet and a little lonely about that score. And I do think there's something to like the the baseball game the isolation of it the loneliness of it um but also the sweetness of just like this this guy who lives in his own head it feels like you're watching buster keaton generate material

yeah this character without having a aspirations to be a performer you know yeah it's the same way he talks about how he'd come up with bits when he goes to a space and goes, well, what could we do in this environment? Here he is as an empty baseball field. What's he going to do? He's going to pretend to be every ball player. And the idea is that in post, it will all come together to look like an actual baseball game. Cut it together.

Here's a guy pitching. Here's a guy pitching. Here's a guy running. In a suit? No, it doesn't make any sense. There's no audience. No, they're never going to buy it. It's never going to work. But he's just trying.

It's like he's in the wrong medium in a way, right? Like it's like your job is to document what's going on. Right. He doesn't think of things literally. The next sequence I have now, if there is a version of this on youtube that i found is him showing the footage to uh the people at mgm and i do love the gag of like uh the street scene with like a battleship yes but this is what i'm saying it's like this

beautiful double exposure where you're like that's kind of a great special effect right and then there's the person jumping from the pool onto the diving board. Yes. And then there's like quadruple footage of cars or whatever where he's like, I don't know, done the lenses wrong. But these are all tricks we have seen him employ purposefully. You know, him doing the baseball game is like him doing the playhouse short where he's everyone on stage. And then, you know, he's discouraged. He's sad.

Everyone in the room's laughing they're all laughing at him they're all having a laugh uh but she's there yeah and she's encouraging you gotta crank forward yeah exactly she's like look you tried like a lot of people wouldn't try right um and she uh you know she's he wants to ask her out and she's like got a date basically but he's he's, she's still like, call me. Right. Uh, and then you have the whole sequence where he's like smashing open the wall,

looking for money and stuff like that. He's got the piggy bank. He can't open. Right. Right. Uh, right. He tries to hold it up against the wall and hammer it in.

Um, and it just gets stuck in the wall. Um, but then you also have, she, she calls right downstairs yes there's like one uh he goes down the staircases that crazy shot he's got this insane wes anderson like dollhouse for flights yeah yeah right which is just a classic buster thing where he's like here's what we're gonna do build four real four real stories. Yeah. Exposed. It looks cool, but

it is unbelievable. Ten seconds of non-comedic footage. No, it's longer than that because the whole bit is that he like runs downstairs. He keeps overshooting. He goes like He gets so much momentum in his running that he keeps on missing

the flight. The gag of him going to the roof and then walking up the roof like stairs. That's funny. I think it's incredibly good, but it's also, it's like, it is an expensive gag. You have to build an insane set to make this work because he understands it's only funny if it's

continuous. The second you have to cut every time he goes up a new floor, it's not going to work. It all just seemed very stressful back then, though. Having to wait by the phone oh a nightmare so much better it would be like at the store like three blocks away you know yes well and then he finally picks up the phone it's her saying her date canceled she could hang out he doesn't even listen to the end of her sentence right he just runs across so by the time she's done with the sentence he's behind her and he says sorry i'm late right which is funny that's funny he's really sweet so they of course have a nice afternoon date at the swimming pool yes right first there's some

business with the old ladies yes uh because she's at like a rooming house or whatever right she's like a what is it like an sro or yeah you know nice a nice young single woman we can't forget the bus ride either. Then they get on the bus. Right. Well, and also all the other women are like fawning over him.

Falling all over him. So then this, what do you call it? What do you call the sort of old lady who looks over a lady's ass? It's the matron. The matron?

I think an old mom. The whole idea was like, you know, if you're a single young woman, you gotta be living in a place where you're not gonna get into any trouble, right? And they can't, you know, if you're a single young woman, you got to be living in a proper place where you're not going to get into any trouble. Right.

And they can't, you know, if there's a gentleman caller, he'll come into the drawing room. And it'll all be formal. You know, he's not going to like come knock on your bedroom door to knock you up. It feels like to me the only Buster movie where they kind of acknowledge that he's hot. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Like the fact like the fact i guess you're not to a silly degree no no but like that ladies want bus he's so low status in his energy and he's so oblivious but there's like when he makes like eye contact with the woman in the crowd she immediately catches him obviously in seven chances the ladies want buster but they want his money for They want his money. I think in this

there's this, you know, without him seeing cocky, it's like this thing of everyone is throwing themselves at him. He only has eyes for what's her name? Sally. Yes. But yes, he ends up on the roof of the bus.

Yeah, you got bus business and then the swimming pool or what do we call this? You know, the baths. Yes. Right? It's the city plunge, right?

Right. Follows her into the ladies' room. Big mistake. Don't do that. A bathing suit. Terrible. Right. I mean, I don't know.

Hygiene, I guess, was different then? Yeah. I mean, look. I don't Hygiene, I guess, was different then? Yeah. I mean, look, I don't know. Yeah, I guess it was a bit of a luxury to own a bathing suit because it's like... I don't know. I don't know why. I don't know.

You know, the sort of like sociology of like public bathing and the way it changed over is interesting because obviously man has gone in water since time immemorial right yeah but like then you you know all the like the victorian bathing machines you know about that where they would like build a house in the water okay so you could like get in the water without anyone seeing you that's insane you know what i mean okay like so like obviously yes you may have to remove some clothes you're probably still still wearing a top-to-bottom brown bathing suit. But no one has to see that because your bathing house is on the water and has walls.

A little cabana. Yes. Sort of weird. Yes, insanity. But this is like he goes to these lockers where I guess it's just come one, come all. So he gets in there and then another guy just sort of, you know, barges in with him. And Sedgwick wanted to play the guy in the dressing room. Sedgwick kind of looks like

like when I see pictures of him, he looks like this guy. More of a husky, you know, big guy. He was like 6'1", 300 pounds. Right. And Buster said the guy needs to be the same height as me because he can be a little bit rough, but if he's too much taller than me,

people are going to think the guy's going to knock me out. Right. This guy can't be like that much of a physical threat to me. He can just seem a little bit tough. Look, the guy's a little mean because Buster says,

this is my dressing room and the guy says, shut up or it'll be your coffin. Yes. So he's going right to murder. But I also like that it's sort of this. He's not even like, I'll give you a black eye. No, no.

It's like, your final resting place is this fucking dressing room. I think this guy was like, he was the locations manager. He was a crew member. Uh-huh. Okay. He was not a performer. He was a crew member. And the thing I like is that it's just sort of this like stereotype of a new yorker

where he's like excuse me i'm already in here and the guy sort of has the attitude of like yeah well i walked in here and i'm too busy to get out of here um you just gotta fucking live with it and also buster's doing all the finesse comedy this guy's just you know elbows and you know that's what's remarkable about it is like he just told the guy undress and i will do comedy around you but then of course they're getting their clothing items like kind of like getting on his back is that is one of the funniest parts it's so good it is i mean obviously like i said i do think this is like the whole thing with these buster movies is i'd seen some of them and others i would be like well i know about that bit you know that bit right um like you know like the uh the avalanche or things like that you know and

like this one yes this the the changing room is kind of the most famous camera and once again he reuses this for the rest of his career once again oh just want to shout out buster great bod total cutie this is the scene this is the scene when he starts to pull up his tank top and you're like fucking shredded. No shit he was shredded. The guy was working like crazy and was like doing all this athletic stuff. But I think usually he tries to hide it

and then you look at this and you're like, yeah, he's like built like fucking Spider-Man. He is like zero body fat. He'd probably be a good Spider-Man. He'd be a great, oh my God. 1940s Buster Keaton. Should we bring back this kind of bathing suit?

Like the dude in the kind of old-timey wrestler, you know, jumpsuit-y kind of thing? Like with suspenders? David, if you ever see me on the beach, I'm wearing fucking this. No one's ever seen my nipples. Why not? They suck.

Get them out. No. I'll go shirtless with pasties on that is so disturbing that is a very disturbing chicken cutlets and then you know we're in the baths yeah uh there's the thing where he swims like kind of onto the platform you get in on so he's kind of swimming in place uh-huh that's pretty funny yes uh these bats are pretty cool they have like a fountain yeah you know yeah kind of fancy bath they're trying to play catch and there's this group of fucking jerks uh-oh a bunch of steak sellers who are like look

at this little guy yeah i mean it's just like him i'm gonna catch the ball yeah this is my girl they're trying to play catch, and these guys keep, like, you know, getting in the way. This is my girl now. Right. There's some diving. Ben's slamming his fist in anger. You know, really good diving.

You're supposed to be annoyed by them, Ben. This is the whole point. It's very effective. But Buster's like, let me do a really good dive for you. And she's, like like begging him not to. She's at this point, I think, gets the deal with him and is like, don't do this. This is what I like. I like that she gets him.

She gets him. And she's like, you don't need to do anything to impress me. He's sort of, it's, this is like the one movie where he doesn't understand he's already won. Right. Right? Like she wants to go on a date with't understand he's already won. Right. Right? Like she wants to go on a date with him. She's charmed by him. She likes him.

He's winding himself up to prove a point that doesn't need to be proven at this point. But he does this overly extreme dive. He dives so hard that it knocks all of his clothes off. And then he's, it's a little risque. He's searching for his bathing suit. He can't see anything, but you can tell he's nude under the water. It's well done where he dives in,

you see his body go down, you see the suit rise up, you see him come out, there's clear water in his eyes, he swims over, like dog paddles over to the edge, and then you see the suit floating in the background.

He tries to get a leg up to get out, and then's like oh you know can't do this you know and basically it's how do i get out of this pool without becoming a sex offender right that's the bit then well buster you know maybe you shouldn't have done a fancy dive maybe you shouldn't have done a fancy plus your girlfriend is so cute yeah she's very cute so she's like i think she's great in this too i do too and i she's really good i like the fact's like... I think she's great in this, too. I do, too. She's really good. I like the fact that, like, I think they have... What's the actress's name? The actress's name is Marceline Day.

Yes. And she is... She was a bathing beauty? She was a... Right? Yes. She... Well, let's see.

She was one of the baby stars, which is another one of these promotional campaigns for cuties was that a max senate then uh it was the uh western association of motion picture advertisers it was sort of an it girl adjacent thing and it included the baby stars included like joan crawford mary astor janet gainer like okay big big uh future names my favorite babies so like being in that would would boost your um would boost your uh cred and then she was in a movie called london after midnight midnight which is a classic lon chaney movie that is lost that's the one we talked about where i made you look up the monster design that's like fucking insane uh-huh uh it's too insane it's creepy yeah it's creepy as shit. She also did The Jazz Age.

I think it was a pretty big Douglas Fairbanks movie back then. But, you know, at a certain point, you know, she lived till she was

91 years old. I think they have, just by the nature of this story, and the fact that she's, you know, sort of into him from the beginning,

they have more kind of conventional romantic comedy chemistry in this than he often does with his women who are sort of at a pedestal that he's running

to try to reach, you know? I like that you get to spend time with the two of them actually hitting it off. All right. So they get out of there. She's like, let's go to the beach.

But then there's this whole business with the mean guy shows up in the car and he's like, I'll drive you home. And then he puts Buster in this bitch seat in the back. It's like torrential downpour.

And then it starts raining. I mean, he barely lets him get a seat. He puts him in the trunk as it's like torrential downpour and then it starts i mean he barely lets him get a seat he's driving in the trunk essentially but this like tiny bits of just like you know you see him sitting in the bitch seat right and then it cuts to the car finally pulling up to its resting place now there's a storm you see him there he's flooded he takes his cap off and he's trying to scoop the water out With his hat It's pretty funny Pretty funny stuff You know

They're inside high and dry And he's trying to He's trying to mack in on her He's trying to hone in He's trying to get Buster out of the way Buster's all wet She goes upstairs Is he doomed? There's this thing also griff where we

keep seeing this street cop oh my god who's sort of like making faces at buster yeah so what's the vibe with a street cop well i think it's like you set up one specific uh uh sort of authority figure this guy who's just kind of like, that guy's up to no good. I have my eye on him. He like recurs in scene after scene. Yeah. I like him. I think it's a funny dynamic.

But it's sort of like versus something like cops. Harry Gribben. Yes. He was a big, big... He did 140 films in 20 years. Yeah. It's always the same thing. Yeah.

Stock company player. So the street cop hassles him. No, I'm saying versus something like Cops the Short, which is obviously a masterpiece, but turns the cops into an amorphous blob. They're a body. Right? Yes.

I like centralizing it around one guy who's always going to be the guy on the corner who's always looking at him askance. Check in to see if he's goofy. Yeah. So Buster's sad. Because this movie doesn't have the disapproving dad the boss in this film you know at mgm is not as much of a villain as usually he has a couple antagonists right there's the the romantic rival but then there's also some elder statesman figure some parental figure right and i feel like the

cop is filling that role in this the guy who's just constantly judging him um looking to catch him in the act but buster is he goes back to the mgm yeah uh they first dismiss him but then they send him to cover a celebration in chinatown well she gets the tip off yeah yeah right right she they're like beat it and she's like I heard There's something happening in Chinatown That you could go you know film And he's like okay I'm not gonna fuck it up

And he immediately puts the camera through the door window Yes And then there's this whole crazy Well David what happens before this When he's trying to position himself Yes There's an organ grinder which i think was always like it seems like this was always in the pitches for every they're like

and there's a bit with a monkey yeah right you know like you know thalberg is like and when does the monkey come in he has an organ grinder monkey right right monkeys are funny which he conceded to it's the same thing i like about go west he's really good with animals yeah and monkey look the monkeys in the little sailors monkey cute monkey always funny but you feel bad but also it's it's it's fun to see yeah the viola davis thing i always invoke about like you know no actor is more interested in watching a cat because you can't totally read what they're doing, but there's something fascinating going on every minute. Buster acts with the sort of behavioral subtlety of watching a wild animal

that you cannot totally read. And so when you watch him act with an animal, be it a cow or a monkey, you do feel like they're on the exact same page, you know? But also, I mean, this monkey, I assume, probably, you know, done 40 pictures. Oh, yeah. They call a cut, the monkey lights a cigarette,

and it's like, oh, God. This monkey was the fourth highest paid star at MGM at the time. But the Oregon Grinder's sort of running this con. Yes. Of, you fell over, you crushed my monkey, you have to pay me for the dead monkey. Pay me for my monkey, right. The cop makes him pay, and then immediately the monkey you have to pay me for the dead monkey. Pay me for my monkey, right. The cop makes him pay,

and then immediately the monkey springs back to life, and now the monkey's like his AC, his assistant camera. The monkey's so cute. The monkey's so cute. And then you just got so many good little gags here. I mean, this whole, like, war breaks out, right? The Tong War, which is a real thing. Yes.

The rival factions in Chinatown would sometimes erupt into crazy fighting, especially in San Francisco. This is the biggest sequence where you have this parade that turns into an all-out street war. But you have him at the sidelines cranking his camera, and then the monkey pulls up next to him with a gadlin gun and starts shooting the gadlin gun and perfect timing with him so that it looks like he's firing out of the camera. And then he has to stop the monkey from shooting at people. There's just this one crazy shot where he cuts to the wide of the street. Yes. And it's like people are shooting from every window and scattering and running around.

And, you know, it's just impressive. But there's he, he goes up to the elevated platform where there's sort of the scaffolding. Yes, right, right. And then the piece of the scaffolding falls over and so it sort of turns into like a makeshift crane shot where he's like craning down into the action. It's this

thing where suddenly like he's getting the most incredible footage possible. He's right there and for once like nature is helping him. The environment is helping him. And his mishaps are not, you know, there are only helping as well.

Right. Right. It's like, it's suddenly like the power of cinema is like on his side. Yeah. You think he's killing it. He goes back. He's so excited.

It opens up the camera. There's nothing in it. Yes. He fucked up. He forgot to load the film right she gets in trouble she tipped him off because then it none of the other professional cameramen got there in time she gave him the exclusive tip off and now she's also in trouble um they have one last shot it's frustrating to fuck up Yes And it's this you know Right you know It's the boat stuff right that's the final That's the final sequence really

Well the asshole goes boating with her And he capsizes the boat Like an idiot He's showboating Showboating truly So he smashes into Buster's rowboat, capsizes, Buster rescues her. Right.

Well, actually, it's going around in circles. Yes. And she's drowning in the center. And he swims away. He swims away like a fucking coward. He sucks. Then Buster goes, rescues her, brings her back to the beach,

goes to get some supplies. Yeah, he runs to the drugstore. Yes. And then he comes up. The villain, the cad. Yes. Pretends he rescued her, but. But.

The monkey was filming the whole time. The monkey there learned how to crank the camera. Good shit. Is filming the entire time. And then it turns out like all the footage is there, right? The monkey swapped the reels. Right, right, right, right. And so they actually have everything.

They have everything. So Buster is a success, and there's evidence of his girlfriend's boyfriend being an asshole. Right, which he goes and screens. They're like, this is the greatest footage we've ever seen, and this guy sucks. And then he gets a fucking ticker tape parade because they gave those out.

New York was easy with ticker tape parades. Well, well, well, well, well. It's actually not for him. It's for Charlie Lindbergh. I think this is so much of my love of this movie is I find this ending so poetic. Go off on the ending. Buster so rarely wins in his movies, right?

Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, sometimes he gets to, you know, turn into a gravestone with his wife. I think even when he usually wins in that, like, things are going to be okay for. Yes, but it feels like there's there's a bit of indignity in the win or he's often maybe not like aware of how things have worked out. He still seems oblivious, you know, right? aware of how things have worked out he still seems oblivious you know right or you know he wins by like the skin of his teeth but everything still feels a little on edge the guy's still a little bit under the boot of society right this ending is one of the only times where like

it feels like he gets to feel good about himself in any movie and it still is him being oblivious and misunderstanding but for once in a way that actually makes him happy right right she tells him we watched your footage it's unbelievable also i know this guy's a fucking jerk now because he's already by the way uh he he hands it in he goes he fucking pawns off his camera again right goes back to the tin type he's thrown in the towel he thinks he's over yeah and she comes in finds him is like they think it's the best forge they ever seen you won't believe the reception they're gonna throw for you right so he then thinks suddenly ticker tate start flying around him this must be for me drums this is the reception she's talking about

They're so happy with me They're throwing a parade for me And he starts like You see his posture change As he walks down the street with her And he starts like waving sort of like Magnanimously to the crowd And then you cut back and realize

It's Charles Lindbergh Which of course The original pitch for this movie Was a Charlie Lindbergh thing Right and instead it's a movie in which he Basically gets to reap the rewards In his mind of Charles Lindbergh He gets to feel like Lindbergh for a moment

It's nice I think this movie's great I'm not like fucking steak haws over here Man it's just I hate that The world is set up where there's just always going to be i think you're busted out these we watch a lot of them in a short period of time and also and but like it's like that's what i'm saying like they're always going to have the little bit of the vibe of like man you know the world's always against usually against you it's tough to stick out look

it's obviously as if it needs to be said the reason i love buster keaton so much is this is just how i feel all the time i know i it's not hard to see how you identify with this boy yes i definitely get it right so i'm just like these movies are all my worldview for sure um these are all like the indignities of life you know the small tiny indignities of any given moment. And that it's always it's always gonna be kind of the most ridiculous scenario plays out. Yeah. That doesn't work in your favor. Correct. It's frustrating because it feels

I mean, obviously it's exaggerated. It's the movies but. But you look for these tiny little moments. Things kind of do happen like that. You look for these tiny little moments of grace. And I think think the parade is one of them and there's it's it's rare that he i don't know i i just think it's rare that he has a positive misinterpretation of a situation sure and especially for that to be the note the movie ends on spite marriage box office game i'm sorry i'm sorry shush the monkey's name game it's josephine hey nice name famous monkey they always are she was like the crystal of her day had an illustrious

career yeah um yes a very famous monkey uh the most famous monkey in motion pictures lived to a grand old age of at least 35 because there's a picture of her celebrating her 35th birthday okay uh okay number one this movie opens at number 10 on the charts okay uh so number one at the box office griffin is a drama okay uh a nautical or you know aquatic drama aquatic drama. Mutiny on the Bounty? No. Good guess. It's a William K. Howard film starring Victor McLaughlin,

and it is called The River Pirate. Oh, okay. Sounds pretty fun. Yeah, that sounds cool. Okay, number two at the box office, Griffin, and this is the first time I can do this. The Best Picture winner from the year before. The first winner of Best Picture.

Wings. It's the film Wings. With Clara Bow, of course. Yes. And very young Gary Cooper is in that film, among others. Charles Rogers. Charles Rogers, past and future guest? No.

In fact, Buddy Rogers was his nickname. And in the late 20s and early 30s, he was known as, quote, America's boyfriend. The only truly silent film to win Best Picture. Correct. Obviously, Sunrise also wins Most Unique and Artistic Picture that year. And there's some people who say that really should be considered the Best Picture,

the first Best Picture winner because Wings actually won Outstanding Production. Right. And Wings, if you've seen it, it's a bit long, but it does have these incredible like flying sequences. It's such an impressive movie.

Yes. But those titles feel representative of what they were awarding. Right. That having said, Sunrise rips so fucking hard. Well, Sunrise is

one of the greatest movies ever made. And Wings is like an interesting artifact. An impressive achievement. And Clara Bozalha. Yeah, a historical document. Yeah. So that's Wings, number two interesting artifact. An impressive historical document. So that's Wings, number two. It's been in the box office for about a year.

Big old hit. Number three at the box office is an Ernst Lubitsch film. Oh. 1928. Mainly silent, although it does have some talking sequences. It's a biography of emperor paul of russia and it stars emil jannings a fairly well-known actor yes oscar winner uh who did a lot of like merno movies but is the uh the last laugh right uh that is a movie but this movie is

the patriot that wasn't my guess i'm saying that's His most famous starring role Probably Oh yes The Last Command Is a movie he won an Oscar for Uh huh You know He did a lot of

Whatever You know what The Last Laugh is a great movie It's a very good movie Yeah it's very good Yeah I haven't seen all these Fucking 20s movies

What do you want from me I don't know But I don't know It looks like a movie Where he's in like Big makeup and Cool yeah Good ass actor But it's Lubitsch I know I should watch it I'm Silent Lubitsch is a big you want for me i don't know but i don't know it looks like a movie where he's in like big makeup and cool yeah good good ass but it's lubech i know i should watch it i'm i'm

silent lubech is a big blind spot for me it's i i wouldn't call that a big blind spot big ass okay number four uh a silent drama joseph von sternberg another uh you know giant yes of of early cinema uh starring but this is not a Dietrich movie, it's George Bancroft and Betty Compton. Okay. The title refers to a location. Is it Docks of New York? The Docks of New York.

I know, I've seen that one. There you go. Is it good? Yeah, it's fucking ruled. It sounds pretty good. Yeah. It's also a tight 76. Yeah. I should check it out.

Love to see it. Variety, of course, called it a corking picture. It is. I think I should start busting that in my reviews. Yeah. Hey, this is from Dungeons & Dragons. It's corking. When Michael Phillips goes on FilmSpotting,

he always uses the terms that we're finding in buster reviews of the era, which I love. Michael Phillips, in a way that feels earned, will call movies a pip. Yeah. Or a corker. A pip is good. I like that one.

What can I say? This one's a corker. Number five, another silent drama. Uh-huh. Dorothy McHale. Okay. Ralph Forbes.

I don't know. I don't know. It's set in the horse racing world uh it's called watch her go it's called the whip oh because you're all right some other films you've got a joan crawford movie called our dancing daughters which is about the loosening of youth morals uh launched the career of joan crawford you've've got a John Barrymore movie called The Tempest. Oh, no, sorry. Just called Tempest, which is a

Russian historical drama. You have a pre-code horror movie, the second talkie horror movie released by Warner Brothers following Lights of New York, which is an old classic called The Terror. Oh, with Boris Karloff? No Terror. Oh, with Boris Karloff?

No. Huh. Not with Boris Karloff, so whatever. I'm curious what The Terror is. He also made a movie called The Terror. He might have. It's a pretty good title. And then you've got a drama called Lilac Time. The Boris Karloff Terror is from fucking

1963. That's with Jack Nicholson. What was I talking about? The Terror. Oh, I know that. I've heard of that one with Nichols. Yeah. I guess it's in the English Manor House or Stalked by a Mysterious Killer and only has the Terror.

I don't know. Sounds fucking cool. All right. So obviously, I would say the jewel of these movies that we were talking about this week is The Cameraman. I think Spite Marriage

just doesn't quite come together. I agree. It's got good stuff in it, but... It's got some bits. It does feel like he's losing some life force. You feel the defeat in this one. Yeah, so... I think this setup is pretty good,

even if it's not necessarily a perfect buster setup. It's one of these things... I've seen people say this as we uh do these episodes but just like man there are so many silent comedies with really good premises that studio should be remaking now because they're not these sacred texts right and they're just good comedy setups and this is one where i was like this is a good fucking comedy set up premise and then i realized basically marry me the j-lo owen wilson version is a less acidic version of this premise but buster is a sort of hapless man he's a dry cleaner he's

a dry cleaner he has a crush on an actress a star he goes to see her show every single night he dresses up like a fancy gentleman flowers has a top hat has a top hat. Yes, but it's all an act. She is in love with her co-star in the show. Yes. Lionel Benmore. Yes. Good name. Is a parody of Lionel Benmore. Takeoff on. He instead goes for another young woman

and out of... I think for the newer, younger lady, too. There's a little bit of a... The blonder. Yes. The new starlet and uh she out of spite to uh earn her his jealousy in her mind decides to marry this man who is constantly hovering around first guy she sees the guy she assumes so she yeah uh it is kind of clear similar to marry me because she even has like a manager who's like, this is a terrible idea. Like, you know, like, you know, she has handlers who think it's a bad idea.

Marry Me has the weird element. Look, I watched Marry Me on a plane and it's a perfect plane movie. Yeah. Marry Me is, look, Marry Me is fine. Yeah. It's just that I just, I'm just like, there's no way these people have sex. No. That's my whole problem with that movie. They just did not have, there's no way these people have sex. No. That's my whole problem with that movie.

They just did not have, they had kind of cute friend chemistry. They have cute friend chemistry. But they just did not have any romantic chemistry. No. And J-Lo can have chemistry with a lot of people. She's, you know, she's pretty charming. Yes, she can. And Owen Wilson is more of a specific vibe these days.

Yeah. Maybe always has been. Yeah. But, you know, they just were an odd match. Yes. But there's also the weird thing in that premise, which is, like, he doesn't even know her stuff, really. He gets dragged to the concert

by his daughter and his best friend, Sarah Silverman. Oh, yes. And he's holding the sign by accident. Like, he gets past the marry me sign. Right. It's like a complete sort of chance thing, whereas what I think is kind of fun in this premise is buster is her biggest fan yes he is getting what in his mind is his greatest dream right and then immediately turns out to be

like much more intense than he could ever imagine because it's a spite marriage it's a spite marriage and he is but a pawn in a game he doesn't quite understand let me give you a little context a little little context um mgm's biggest note after cameraman is this movie needs to be cheap yeah uh no more overruns my friend so they finalize a big script yes thalberg uh is very you know involved apparently the first draft had a cannibal island on it and they wanted the same fucking ending as now as uh navigator yeah except i think yeah yeah exactly it was the same it was even the final crazy i know um i mean obviously this movie has a boat and stuff like i can see that they're thinking like oh the boat runs aground on an island but it's just the same fucking ending as the navigator and it's another one of these things where you're just like, minute 50,

he runs out of spite marriage premise. What happens now? I don't know, we go to a boat, I do boat bits. Right. Like, it just felt like when Buster was, like, out of ideas, he would get in a boat. For sure. A boat or a train, and he's like,

I can get 20 minutes out of this. There was a fight over the bridal suite sequence. We can talk about that. That's the best sequence in the movie. They wanted to cut it out and Buster said he talked like a Dutch oven to save that scene. I'm not really sure what that means. I don't either, but I'm saying you fart under the

sheets. That is what I think of as a Dutch oven. Right. But I don't think Buster filled a bed with his farts to win over Irving Thalberg. He walked into Irving Thalberg's office and went, or maybe he was like, I have farted so much in this blanket wrapped around me.

If you don't keep the scene, I'll throw it over your head. Exactly. Uh, all right. Uh, but he did fight for it. Uh,

there's lots of, um, you know, frustration at this point between Buster and the executives. Thalberg loved the cameraman. It's not like they don't like the final product. So Keaton is like, I fucking proved my point,

but they won't give me my control back. Yeah. But there's, I mean, you know, we've covered stuff like this before, but I just always think about that quote Sam Raimi says about working on the Spider-Man movies where he's like, I never thought I'd get hired for it.

Yeah. They hired me for it. I never thought they'd let me do what I want. They let me do what I wanted. Then the sequel comes around. They give me even more leash. They let me do exactly what I want. The movie's even more well-received. And then the third movie comes around and they're like, okay, we got some rules for you. Suddenly, even though they appreciate what he did

and it worked, I think when the stakes get higher people then start to want to be able to claim credit there's and there's money and you know more money more problems as a certain notorious pig once told us yeah it's also look this is the fucking problem with like studio executives pig because he's a space jammer new legacy of course talking about notorious and we all remember that's the funniest thing to ever happen buster wishes he could have come up with something like that. I mean, look.

I'm just amazed that Notorious P.I.G. has not shown up in other WB projects. They should start slotting him in. Yeah, exactly. Algy Rhythm should start fucking putting him in every season of True Detective, retrofitting him into everything. Algy Rhythm, he's in a big fight with ZazLab,

and he's been relegated to Nat Geo. No, I can't even do these jokes. Nat Geo is a Disney man anyway. Look, one other thing that's happening, is there's a lot of gossip, because Buster's on the MGM lot now, and apparently he's flirting with the ladies because his marriage is on the rocks.

He says it's all, you know, guff. It's all made up. These gossip columnists, you know know they just like to they'd like to say he's flirting with ladies but by most accounts the leading lady in this film he sort of has not enough affair with for the next decade correct dorothy sebastian is her name they they certainly had a long thing yes um this is also the movie where his drinking starts to really take hold. But no, the other thing we haven't mentioned is he initially was like, let's do a sound movie. This is the thing.

I had always thought. It'll have a sync track. It'll have some sound effects. I had always incorrectly thought that MGM was the one pushing sound on him. And in fact, he said, I want to make my first sound picture. And they said no, A, because sound was so new and MGM was kind of slowest

in the sound race. They were. Because they were the creakiest, most conservative, most classical, you know, yeah, right. Right. This newfangled modern toy,

we don't need this thing. They basically had... They said it was a fad. They said it was a fad. It uses me to no end. Yes. Crazy. Yes.

They had, like, one sound kit. So they were like, first of all, someone else claimed it. Sure. There's only one sound movie at any given point in time, right? And two, you know, I think internally they were like, the last thing we need is to give Buster Keaton another toy to fidget with. Don't add anything that makes this film more complicated. So the concession was in post, we can have a synchronized soundtrack with sound effects and music.

You can use those to your advantage. He was never really going to use dialogue anyway, but he wanted to be getting the sound live. I think I have to imagine for him a he's such a technology nut right that i think he was interested in it but i also have to imagine that part of it was i need to keep up with the times if i'm going to fight for slapstick comedy to survive i need to also let ben's got a slapstick I need to also try to let this thing evolve to the new media yes like look people have still done this in a talkie era sure he wanted to be there you think

we should still call movies talkies yeah I do like I'm gonna go see the new talkie Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantumania mm-hmm they do talk in it it's like a 12-wheeler the most grueling part of the shoot the yacht sequence uh apparently at one point buster fell in the water okay came out looking happy and they were like the water's freezing are you okay and he said oh i always cover myself with goose grease when i have water stuff goose grease i don't know what the fuck that is but he was like keeps the heat in wow lord knows what he was putting on his body but uh may have

literally been goose fat for all i know um but i think generally the shoot was not that complicated no it did go over budget uh-huh but it cost 282 so it was cheaper than the cameraman yes uh and on though it got decent reviews and did totally fine at the box office you know again not i think maybe not quite the spectacular hit they want from their new star contract guy no and and after this they just promptly say uh here's the deal you are an actor in our stable that's it right we are slotting you in where we want to um i think yeah i think that you know the the best stuff in the movie is the sort of early days of their marriage i mean stuff like obviously the sequence of him getting getting her into bed when she's drunk.

Anything where she sort of makes herself a handful and he is trying to account for her. You know? It's fun to see the woman in a Buster Keaton picture be this high status. And be kind of the stinker. Be the dilemma. Yeah.

Yeah. I think that stuff has a little bit of juice. Yeah. She's kind of mean to him she is despite marriage i guess i mean yeah uh it's a great title it's kind of a funny title yeah and she ends up on the boat and that's fine yeah we don't need to know why no no but it is it you do you feel like okay he's he's really just going back to the old Reliables here? Well, let's see. There's the whole sequence on stage where he's in costume as a soldier. That part's fun, right.

It's kind of funny. Right. He's seen the show so many times that he can sub in. Right. Yeah. And he's got the silly beard on. Yeah. It's kind of funny he's got the silly beard on. Yeah. It's kind of funny.

What else? What else happens in this play? Let me scrub through this one. I'm scrubbing too. Yeah, let's scrub in. There's them in. It is the nice thing about doing these movies is you can just fucking have it up on your screen,

scrub through and remind yourself of the things. Takes her to dinner. That is when the sound effects do not work at all. The laughing, it's psychotic. Yes. It made me feel like I was having a mental breakdown. And I kind of am. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. She gets like too drunk at dinner and there's a lot of hijinks there. And then they just end up on a boat. Yeah. It is kind of all over the place. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, he hops into a cab Yes That drops him at the docks Yeah And that's how he ends up on the boat Because the guy was shooting at someone I do also feel like this movie has more title cards Like there's more dialogue

There's more sort of like banter Yeah I don't know if that you know Is just how the times were changing yeah i mean like 45 minutes in the the barrymore figure tells him she's marrying you to make me angry right uh they get in a fight i think at that point and that's honestly like when he gets like forced into like he drives his car the cab into the ocean, and then a boat picks him up, and then she's on the boat. And

as is the jerky guy. The Ben Moore. Then it just becomes a different movie. Then it's a boat movie. There's a whole thing with sails, there's a whole thing with a flooding room where he has to get the water out of the room. And it ends with a bunch of bonks.

There's a bit with the chef There's this whole sort of Set that has like a staircase That I feel like I wanted more from Look I want more More hijinks From all of this It's a tiny little thing but I like the little

Dog he has the sad eyed dog That looks kind of like him The little toy He does this sort of little puppetry routine with It's possible it was just kind of like Also a little busted out But I do just think It's not as clean

The premise for some reason And so, you know This is him getting Everything taken away from him You know, this is him getting everything taken away from him, you know? This is him kind of giving up. There's just not enough juice. No. Not enough juice.

No, and, you know, the movies he makes after this at MGM, as we said, they're the three Durante comedies, What No Beer is the End of the Run, The Sidewalks of New York, Free and Easy. I mean, there's like a whole run. about eight of them i think uh the mgm talkie pictures that come after this most of them are hits he remains hits bankable without really remaining very relevant i think he just well let me here we have some context on this sort of like the fallout of this movie yeah um mgm one one problem is of course sound comes in yeah so suddenly all of keaton's movies make less money generally right like he's just old news i mean this is you know you can this happens to everybody um whatever idea mg him had for him pumping out films crashes into that and just doesn't work.

Like, so he can't, he's not making movies. The only movie he makes in 1930 is this film Hollywood Review, which is just like every MGM contract player does like a bit. The scene in Babylon where they have like... Where they're doing Singing in the Rain. Is from this.

Yes. And Buster's one of the guys doing Singing in the Rain and then they basically give him one segment to do a slapstick routine. He does a princess Raja routine, whatever that is. Sure. Um, you know,

Thalberg at a certain point steps aside, uh, like as his overseer, he's doing other stuff. Uh, and that is a point that this new guy called, uh, wine garden comes in.

He's just, he's the one who's like, you are now an actor. Yeah. Uh, so yeah, free and easy. Like's like, you are now an actor. Yeah. So yeah, free and easy, like you said. A movie called Doughboys. Yes.

Doughboys is kind of fun. I assume that's sort of a war comedy. I'd argue that's the best of the talkies. I've definitely seen the poster where he has the helmet. Like, you know, where he's a doughboy. I've never seen the movie, obviously. And he's Spoon Nation in that movie, I think, ultimately. That's the side he's fighting on.

Right. He's not in the Burger Brigade. He's not in the Burger Brigade. But, you know, you just read these accounts of, like, Cedric and people who are just like, you just saw him on set sulking. Right. And drinking. Yes.

Drinking himself to sleep. He would drink a full bottle of whiskey. You don't want to do that. Every night. FYI. Drink yourself to sleep he would drink a full bottle of whiskey you don't want to do that every night fyi yes drink yourself to sleep if you're drinking yourself to sleep maybe evaluate what you're doing there yeah i i think you get a better rest oh sure sure sure right of course you're right and you wake up feeling great yes you wake up feeling so good and you don't need more the next day no uh the nadir for him is Sidewalks of New York. Right. That one, he just said everything about this

was a fucking turkey. I saw it on paper. I mean, this thing of him understanding, like, I've been studying audiences my entire life, right? It's in my fucking bones. This setup doesn't make sense.

Right. He's like, this setup doesn't work. People aren't going to buy into it. Execs are trying to pitch him on what's funny. And he just was like, I can't fight this thing.

I can't fight City Hall. I can't fight City Hall. I know this thing's gonna suck. There's nothing I can do to prevent it. I think Sidewalk of New York leads into the Durante run, basically. He pisses everyone off so much that Louis Mayer is like, fine, fuck you. You are now second banana to Jimmy Durante.

Durante is the plot driver in the movies, and he's kind of like the dumb best friend. Right. And when making what? No beer? Yes. Ironically, a movie about prohibition.

Right. He gets so shit-faced that he, like, falls asleep on set one night, and, like, you know, when the film wraps production, MGM fires him. It is the first time his alcohol gets in the way of his ability to shoot a day. Yes.

Yes. So he gets fired. The story's even kind of worse in that he like stays up all night drinking, cannot get to sleep. Then he's so tired. He's like drinking a bunch of coffee and nothing's jolting him awake. And he's like, I've tried every like caffeine and stimulant maybe I should have another beer so then he has a beer on top

of it in the morning and he passes out and they cannot wake him up he's there in his dressing room that is the final straw right that instant and they ride that movie out his contract is set and he's fired and because of that rep that he's built up for himself no one else wants him no other studio he goes to all of them they don't want him uh so he starts making the educational

pictures shorts yes uh makes 16 of them he obviously has more control but the budgets are low yeah uh have you you've seen some of those you said yeah they're they're okay i mean it's him back to doing it's the form of what he should be doing, but he's kind of broken at this point. He's really in a valley. Because he doesn't meet Eleanor Keaton until after this. And Eleanor Keaton, who's his final wife, who he's with until his death,

is the one who kind of brings him back to life. In 37, he goes back to MGM as a gag man. Yeah. Works with the Marxx brothers works with abedin costello and laurel and hardy biggest uh collaborator is red red skelton yes who i don't know very well but red skelton apparently remade the cameraman there's a film called watch the birdie yes he also remade spite marriage he remade both of these movies called i do did yes it's it's a wild great title no it's a wild thing that there's a 10-year arc of him getting signed to MGM, being one of their biggest stars, bottoming out, going to like a fifth-rate company, making a bunch of shorts.

And within that same 10-year period, comes back, is writing gags for $100 like a week for MGM to let other people remake his movies worse. Right. And by all accounts, he was sort of like, I think he was sad, but he like in a deep existential way, just about his life. He was stable. He was stable. And he also was just like, look, I never had an ego about this.

I like that I'm just actually getting to write gags again right i think to a certain degree he preferred this to the end of his run starring in movies for mgm because it's like they're just slotting me in i don't get to be funny right he prefers getting to sit down and come up with comedy and hand it to someone else than having someone give him shitty jokes that he has to let die on screen um he goes to columbia does some two reelers for them yes uh some people say his best sound work is done there even though those are also yeah you know minor yeah uh then he turns into old keaton that's when he's in the in the good old summertime in limelight he's in sunset boulevard

for a minute you know where he's in the poker game right in limelight. He's in Sunset Boulevard for a minute. He's in the poker game. Right, where he's like this sort of venerable figure at this point doing small supporting work. But the other thing is, I think around the 1950s, his films start getting seriously re-evaluated. There's a real serious reappraisal. He gets sort of like latchedatched onto by uh the critical elite yes and um he's also on tv a lot yes it's look this is the whole thing yeah tv needs time tv needs stuff yes brand new he can

play to a live audience he had a buster keaton comedy show he had two different shows and then something called the buster keaton show both of which have really good shit in them. I bet they do. You can find a lot of it online. There's also a Donald O'Connor starring biopic. That film is dog shit? Yes, that I think is very accurate. Inaccurate, I would say. You're missing the in part of accurate. He also wins an honorary

Academy Award at the end of the 50s. They give it to him before they give it to Chaplin, right? Am I wrong about this? That's a fair question. And I, David Sims, host of Blank Check, co-host, I'm going to find the answer for you right now by clicking here and looking at the answer, which is you are correct.

Thank you. Chaplin won an Academy Honorary Award in 1972. That's the big thing, is that even though Chaplin sort of stayed relevant for longer in terms of his current work, Buster started being taken more seriously sooner. Yeah.

In sort of film history. And this is the period where he remarries. Not a spite marriage. Not a spite marriage. Not a spite marriage. A marriage of true love. But he also, he would do like television commercials. There's a great Buster Keaton Alka-Seltzer commercial.

Yeah, he did a, yeah, yeah. Also some industrial films. Yes. Now, all of this might sound sort of depressing for a guy who was at one time one of the greatest living artists in film right yeah but there's something to the simplicity of in his final years being able to like tv commercials gave him an audience but it also was just this format that allowed him to just be like you have a minute come up with something funny you know people started giving him a little more space to in less prestigious uh uh frameworks just do his thing and it felt like there was an appreciation he he died i think fueling value

right he died quite suddenly of lung cancer his last film was a funny thing happened on the way of the forum which is actually a lot of fun funny in that yeah i haven't seen it since i was a kid but um and uh you know uh is is celebrated as a legend on death it's not like he's a forgotten star you know and then in 2023 blank check did a mini series called podcast junior the final indignity um two things to do yeah first is the box office came for spite marriage of course uh so wait when did that film come out spite marriage came out in march 1929 okay and so is it even on the charts here no not so we'll just do when it came up okay uh sad of course it's not even on the charts. But number one at the box office is another Clara Bow picture.

Okay. It's not It. No, it's neither It nor Wings. Okay. It is about a fun thing you could do with her, and it's, of course, it's her first talkie, and it's one of the only films her first talkie and it's the uh one of the only films um directed

by a woman in that era what woman might have directed you could do with her yeah i don't know that's a terrible clue but it's directed by come on who's a woman who might have directed clara bow is it uh arsner dorothy arsner the great dorothy arsner uh it's clara bow and frederick march who had a great long career It's called A Day in the Park It's called The Wild Party Oh sure Her talkie debut

You know She of course is sort of Like all the John Gilbert supposedly had a high voice Later in life Later in Hollywood history That wasn't the problem His voice was fine Clara Bow supposedly had a high voice right yes later in life later in hollywood history they're sort of like that wasn't the problem no his voice was fine clara bow supposedly had a thick accent kind of like a new yorkie accent or whatever and that was the initial problem but it's like again

it's later people like no that wasn't an issue it's just you know whatever it's funny i do feel like that was more in theory that should have been more of an issue for Buster than it was, but no one talks about it that way. Yes. Because his voice was very much not what you would have expected, but yet those talkie pictures did okay. Yeah, and I believe the sequence in Babylon that is sort of the college film that's being made is kind of going off of,

because Clarabelle really struggled with the microphones, and they made like a sort of fishbowl microphone so she could move around. Apparently the microphones kept exploding. I had a lot of problems back then. Okay, number two. The best picture winner. The second best picture winner.

The second best picture winner. The first Tonki to win best picture. You just watched it. I did. It was a recent watch. I'm done. Was this one that you just recently plugged Yeah Okay and does this one suck?

Yeah it's uninteresting It's mostly a technical Give me the genre Musical It's Broadway Melody The Broadway Melody Yeah Which is basically just kind of like a clip show

Of a lot of different numbers Sure The Broadway Melody is the uh best picture okay number three at the box office oh good name it's uh let's see it's a maybe one of the modern studios should do that with like tiktok like they should make a movie that's just big budget remakes of the 100 most popular tiktoks and put it together the tiktok that sounds like something like algae rhythm which is the tiktok review all right this is a wallace beery film okay TikToks and put it together. That sounds like something like Algy Rhythm would suggest. This is a Wallace Beery film.

It's not a Wallace Beery wrestling picture. No, it's not a wrestling picture, I don't think. It actually has the subtitle or the alternate title Tongue War to sort of draft off of the cameraman here. It's also kind of a gangster movie set in Chinatown. I'm guessing it's also kind of a gangster movie set in chinatown and it is called underworld tongue war it is called resident tongue war chinatown tongue war it's called

chinatown nights oh okay not bad tongue war uh number four at the box office is a silent romance okay uh starring gary cooper and directed by Victor Fleming Good people One of the most famous filmmakers who ever lived Yes About a man who heads out west in 1840 Looking for adventure and meets a group of mountain men Who take him into the mountains To trap beavers and cats

And then he meets a beautiful Mexican woman And they fall in love And he becomes torn between his love for her And his desire for traveling Okay Thank you for finishing fall in love. I'm guessing it's called... And he becomes torn between his love for her and his desire for traveling. Okay. I'm... Thank you for finishing, because that's going to change my guess of the title.

Here's one more thing. Yeah. This is a pre-code film. Okay. And you see Gary Cooper nude. Really? I think you just see his butt, but he washes in a river.

Oh, wow. Yeah, pretty cute. What if he flashes dick? Yeah, there's a five minute unbroken shot of gary cooper's flaccid penis i'm guessing just swinging in the wind i'm guessing this film is called kiss me or i'm gonna travel it's called wolf song fuck kind of a cool name yeah uh number five at the box office uh it is a sports drama. Okay.

Apparently John Wayne had a minor role in it. Which sport? A very young John Wayne. I don't know. This film is completely lost. Okay. And it is about the kind of establishment you might visit in 1929 because alcohol is banned. The gym.

It's called Speakeasy. Oh, okay. So that's the box office for that. And then now, yeah, I mean, you know I think it's time for our Buster list I think so too I don't think we have anything else to do You know what we have to do? Order lunch Because we got another episode to do

We do, we have to do a commentary What do you want? I don't know, I'm hungry Something fast Let's do our rankings first Yes Okay Buster Keaton rankings Do you want to go top to bottom or bottom to top?

I always forget Let's go bottom to top David you go first I have my list locked in So 12 films here Number 12 I have college Number 11 I have spite marriage Number 10 I have go west

We're in the good zone now though Number 9 I have Spite Marriage. Number 10, I have Go West. We're in the good zone now, though. Number 9, I have Three Ages. Number 8, I have The Navigator. 7, Battling Butler. 6, Our Hospitality. Now I feel like we're getting into the masterpiece zone. Number 5, Steamboat Bill Jr. Number 4, Seven Chances.

Number 3, The Cameraman. Number four, Seven Chances. Number three, The Cameraman. Number two, The General. Sherlock Jr. number one. That's my list, and I'm sticking to it. Unless you criticize it, in which case I might fold like laundry. I mean You know It's the question of objective favorite versus Go for your heart man

Objective best versus Okay I'm saying it's Number 12 Spite Marriage Wow you have it all the way at the bottom Yeah it's Spite Marriage versus College right So College at 11 Yeah

Battlingler at 10 okay oh pretty low go west at nine although i do think go west deserves some credit you like the cow i like the cow a lot i think you can't oversell how good the cow is in the movie okay number eight three ages yeah number seven the navigator okay number six seven chances oh you have a little other than me sure yeah number five our hospitality yeah now this is the question of where do i rank the big four where do i rank the cameraman within this i don't know you can put it number one for all you want i'm not gonna put it at number one i'm going to put it at number three so i'm gonna put the general at number four yeah cameraman at number three steamboat bill

junior at number two sherlock junior number one i love it the juniors happen i think we have fairly similar yeah but i think that top four is uh kind of impeccable and then i think you know i think everything but college and spite marriage i highly recommend watch basically agree and i think those are for complete assault. Yeah. Three Ages is the only one where I would kind of be like, that's more one you can get to once you've watched

a lot of Buster and you kind of want to see him putting it together early. But the good bits in it are unbelievable. You're not going to watch it and not enjoy it. We did a silent film star

on Blank Check. We did. They said it couldn't be done. They did say it couldn't be done. The big wigs, the fat cats. My internal voices. The island banker. Yeah, yeah.

Your imposter syndrome. Yeah. Ben, what's your favorite buster? What is my favorite buster? Damn. Okay, well. Point Dexter? That's funny.

You feeling hot? That's funny you feeling hot that's funny ben are you really so steamed over this snake it's just like a black cloud over your head fucking piss me off no um damn i guess it's gonna have to be sherlock jr it's the best one it's the best one. It's best. It's just perfect. There's other contenders, but that feels like... It's the perfect thing. Yeah, and I got to experience that

in a theater. Yeah, that is cool. With a crowd. A hot crowd, too. They were laughing. Ben's wearing a gummo shirt, by the way. He is wearing a gummo shirt.

So, our Buster series is done. Yeah. And you guys know what is next. We're going right into it. It's Park Chan-wook You guys voted for him

So here he is The people's champion Yeah After defeating Bong Joon-ho by one whole vote He will have a miniseries Starting in June and stretching all the way through The end of August And hey here's the thing I don't like

Our listeners on the internet assuming That we're just gonna go straight from Park Chan-wook into Bong Joon-ho because he lost by one vote? This is a weird assumption you folks have made. They kind of dropped that a certain point. There was a moment, no? They're still getting some of that? They were like, well, you got to do both. We won't be doing both.

In fact, we don't got to do shit. And for any sleuths out there that look up the menu, yeah, it was expensive to begin with, the restaurant. Okay? And we're celebrating a special occasion. We can't cut it out because it's like peppers throughout the episode. The arc of this episode is Ben realizing he starts it as, I hate these snooty rich people. And then realizing everyone's going to come away from this episode saying,

how much money did he spend on a steak? You had. It's Ben the villain and Buster Keaton. You went to what is, I would say, a fancy restaurant in New York City and you, yeah, you got charged fancy fancy. I feel like you're the Buster Keaton character who tried to play high society

and got hoisted by your own petard. Big time. Yeah. It's funny and relatable. Let's get something cheap. For lunch. Yeah. Okay.

What do you want? Dollar pizza. Dumplings. You can do better than dollar pizza. Dumpling sounds all right. One loaf of wonder bread. Just beans. Just a big, big can of beans.

A communal can of beans with one spoon. We'll set up a little fire in the middle here. We'll just roast it. All right. I got to pee. Okay. I know I end a lot of episodes that way, but it's nonetheless true. Yeah.

I'm trying to remember if there's anything else. Any more that you want to say as we push Buster? In terms of wrapping stuff up? No, I hope you've all enjoyed watching these. I have. It's been truly so heartening to me to see people watch these movies i agree i was worried that even if listeners stayed on they would stay on just to listen to us describe them and not actually watch them and my favorite thing is seeing people go like oh i laughed watching this i found it funny

and uh when ben and i saw sherlock jr you, Ben, you were like, there's this whole world of comedy I've just never opened myself up to. Yeah. And I'm way more open to silent movies as well as just dipping back more often and looking at classic films. And I just think, as I've made this point probably too many times across the last six weeks,

I think you see the influence of these films, these 12 movies we discussed, ripple directly into our world today. You know, the DNA of so much of commercial genre filmmaking is in the things that Buster sort of crystallized.

And especially our language of comedy. It's one of my favorite artists of all time. Right, and I think he's pretty good six out of ten yeah him fozzie bear yeah anyone else that was probably the two those two greatest comedic idols buster and fozzie um thank you all for listening it means a lot please remember to rate review and subscribe thank you to marie bardi for our social media and helping to produce this show. Thank you to Joe Bone and Pat Rounds for our artwork.

After some demand requests, we made a shirt available of Pat's design that was so good for this miniseries. We'll be putting that out at some point. Pre-order window. Keep your eyes open for that. It's probably

on for a little while now. Thank you to AJ McKean, Alex Barron for our editing, JJ Birch for our research, Lane Montgomery

and the Great American Novel for our theme song. Go to blankcheckpod.com for links to some real nerdy shit including our Patreon, Blank Check Special Features where we go through film series

and other bonus stuff. If you haven't listened to the Dana Stevens shorts episode and you're ever going to give our Patreon a shot, even if only for one month, I highly recommend that one. And we're finishing up our Planet of the Apes series right now,

getting ready to do People's Champion, March Madness winner, Ocean's Eleven, which should be, ring-a-ding-ding, a lot of fun. We also, just a constant one to remind people, there's the free membership option on Patreon right now where you can sign up. Every 10 days, we unlock an episode from three years ago.

We're unlocking all our 2020 Patreon content, and all the 2019 content is unlocked. At some point in the future, you'll be able to also get a private RSS feed for the free episodes. In the meantime, you can sign up, get notifications. All of that. We're in the middle of a toy story. We're in the middle of a toy story.

Deep pandemic toy story. Early lockdown toy story. There's good stuff. For sure. You want to hear me go off about four movies I'm almost sexually attracted to? A perverse obsession? What is he talking about?

The Toy Story franchise? All right. Tune in next week for the beginning of Park Chain Block. Yep. We're doing his first two films. My Moon is the Sun's Dream

and Trio, which are very hard to find. Yes. So we're just kind are very hard to find. Yes. So we're just kind of bundling them together. Right. And then after that, they're all one movie per episode. We're back to singles.

Yes. Yeah. Goodbye. Goodbye. Forever. And as always, I'm holding up an intertitle card that says The End. There's not a, like these movies suck.

Oh, you didn't like cameraman? No. Wow. Okay. I'm with you on spite marriage. I didn't like cameraman though for a very personal. Save it for the mic. Yeah.

You got to save that for the mic. All right. You got to take here.