Blank Check with Griffin & David - Three Ages / Our Hospitality with Dana Stevens

Episode Date: May 7, 2023

The Great Stone Face…The Little Boy Who Couldn’t Be Damaged…whatever you call him, Buster Keaton is one of the most important figures in film history, and we couldn’t be happier to be spotlight him in our latest series PODCAST JR. Our beloved Dana Stevens - writer of the fantastic Keaton tome “Camera Man” - joins us to set the table as we dive into the filmography of one of Griffin’s favorite artists. We’re going into Buster’s start as a vaudeville child star (sometimes in “Irish face”), the qualities of his work that distinguish him from peers Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd, and we’re dissecting the gags and stunts featured in his first two feature films. Plus - Griffin gives one of his worst Box Office Game performances, and we all learn a bit about early child labor laws. Guest Links:  Get Dana’s book "Camera Man" now in paperback  Read Dana’s film criticism  Listen to Dana on Slate Culture Gabfest This episode is sponsored by:  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

Preface. If you let your mind wander back through history, you will find that the only thing that has not changed since the world began is podcasts. So is that what you're going to have to do? Podcast is the unchanging axis on which the world resolves. Don't say it like that. Don't say it like that.

Is that the thing you're going to have to do? I might mix it up every fucking episode. I was just wondering. This is a question people have. What will you do? People have been having this question. A dialogue-free miniseries? And I think there are multiple ways around it.

Ben is pantomiming right now. And in certain episodes, I might describe his pantomime and put the word podcast into my description. Other episodes, I might use an establishing card like this. Other times, I might do a tagline. I don't want you to know where I'm going. Oh, you want to be totally unpredictable. Yes. Absolutely. I support you.

Thank you. I wasn't saying that. I mean, a convention. I want to have the sense of spontaneity. But of course, the podcast is the Unchanging Axis and Whistleworld Resolves. We all know that. Yeah. It's a great prologue to Three Ages. You know what more movies should

start with titles about love being father time himself just one solitary shot of father time sitting there i do think father time is yeah he is not in the world of ip and uh you know heroes iconic yeah we don't we don't bring in Father Time Are you Dana you can talk Name me a movie in which Father Time is not a silent character Doesn't exist Yeah no it's true he's always showing up You know what I'm saying

Like he's up there with God where you could basically start any movie with Father Time Just tap it on his watch and be like When are we starting this thing But like why did we drop Father Time Is he too similar to like You you know, God, like sort of generic God? And it got mixed up? This is what I like about him. I'm like, this is, he's non-denominational, you know?

Yes, exactly. We can all buy in on this guy. This is, here's another classic white dude with long beard and white flowing hair. I mean, did you, did either of you see the awful Alice in Wonderland sequel, Alice Through the Looking Glass? Of course, where Sacha Baron Cohen plays time. Sacha Baron Cohen is basically playing father time in that. Is he in an old man beard?

No, he has a beard. He's a mechanical clockwork man. Yeah, he's sort of a clock man. Yes. I remember that being one of the more fun, because it's a time travel movie, right? He's good in that movie. Yeah, he's one of the more locked in parts. I feel like we've had this argument because, Dana, we unfortunately cast a spell on ourselves, a curse, and had to cover Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland on this podcast.

Still, I think the worst movie we've ever discussed. I mean, maybe you love that film. I was just going to say, you went back for more after the first Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland? We did not. You had to cover it as a critic. I think I covered it as a critic. I think I covered it as a critic. And then I didn't see it in theaters. I saw it later, years later on Disney+.

And it's one of those things. It's better. But it's one of those things where you're like, it is better, but it is less essential. So everything the movie gains from being slightly better than the first movie, it loses by being a sequel to Alice in Wonderland, a thing that should have never happened. This is a terrible way to start.

But Tosh Baron Cohen's good in it. I just want to say, I'm pulling out, I just pulled up here. The Three Ages, the one shot of father time. Okay. We're talking about two movies today. This is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David.

It's 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, passionate projects they want, and sometimes those checks clear, and sometimes they ... He's trying to do foley work. Is that bouncing? Yeah, I don't know. I didn't have a rubber ball on me.

What about, like, boing? You could have just done that. I wanted to make it sound like he was, like, falling down ... That's the classic origin story of Buster Keaton. You're going to have to tell me. Falling down stairs. We'll get that in a sec. We've got a whole itinerary of things to get through here.

So you fell out of your chair? Is that what happened? Yes. Down a flight of stairs. Down a flight of stairs. Okay, great. We installed a staircase in the office just for this. Just for this.

We're going to do a lot of gags and stunts in this series, and they're all going to be physical. We're definitely going to say gag a lot. We're going to say gag a ton. We're going to say gag way more than we usually do. It's going to be the most gag heavy series we've ever done. It's the films of Buster Keaton. Mm-hmm. Who had a very long career but this miniseries is focused on the Buster Keaton productions run

his wild run in the 20s where he had basically complete artistic freedom for 10 films. And then we're going to cover the first two MGM movies, which were the beginning of the end for him. At least in terms of his golden period. The main series is called Podcast Junior. That's right. You said that was the only pick and I support it.

It's the only pick. We're doubling up these films because they're short. Yep. So today we're talking three ages and we're talking our hospitality his first two directorial features features right would you agree dana these are his first two full features yeah i mean he had been making films at this point already for six years or so but yeah they were all shorts and not independent until 1920 so this is really him busting into feature length. Hey, busting. Busting in.

And then Saphead is his first feature film as an actor, but that's him being hired as an actor. Yeah, which is why that tends to drop out of retrospectives and Keaton filmographies and things like that. People forget about it, even though it's worth watching with a really remarkable ultra deadpan of all deadpans. Also him playing a rich guy,

which is this sub specialty that he's so good at, right? The incredibly useless, foppish dandy is a great sub specialty for him. But it is like he's king of two and three reelers. He does that. And then they're like, don't get too big for yourself. Go back to shorts. And then this is when he comes out and is like, let me really take a stab at features. And something worth noting, actually, is that not only were they his first feature comedies, but feature length comedies

were pretty unusual in 1923. Like Chaplin's first one wasn't until 1921 that he directed himself. This is primordial shit in several different ways for him in his career, feature length comedies,

and also just the genres he's already playing with and his ambition in setting this up. I guess today is Dana Stevens. The great Dana Stevens from Slate, but also the author of Cameraman, the great book about Buster Keaton. Now that we've done the setup, I just want to say, because I've had this

sitting here, this opening image of Father Time. We have to get back to Father Time. Of course. The first chaplain features what, the kid? That's the first... The kid's the first feature link that he directed he was in an earlier one but just like just like he'd next so this movie starts with three ages we're gonna get the context you know we have much much to set up about i just want to talk i want to front load this father time shit okay because as we're saying, this is unmined IP. This is hot IP. Sure, Father Time. There should be a Father

Time movie, right? Father Time should be in every movie. Okay. This shot here of Father Time, okay? Let's talk about what he's got going on here. Old guy. Beard. Long white hair. Scythe. He's holding a scythe. The scythe is a little intense. Like the Grim Reaper. Yes.

They're sort of quietly implying that father time also comes for us all. He's the guy who tells you when your time is up. And then in front of him on his desk, a couple of quilled pens, a skull, an hourglass, and a globe. So he does kind of have a quasi-death vibe. You're right. That's your basic desk set, really. Right. The classic.

But I like that he's like kind of god death and father time at the same time like they're making it seem like he's he's overseeing everything he's the one keeping the trains yeah but maybe that's what messed with him death becomes sort of a hot guy on his own right interesting and then like the sandman shows up right and he's kind of in charge of sort of dreams and stuff i don't know like you're saying the reason father time he's maybe too powerful it's the superman problem you don't know how to put saying the reason Father Time, he's maybe too powerful. It's the Superman problem. You don't know how to put him in a modern movie. I think it's the name. I think you just need to update it

to like Time Daddy. Maybe Time Zaddy. Oh, yeah. That feels like it'll read better for a more contemporary audience. Pedro Pascal is Time Zaddy. This is interesting. He was, yeah, he's existed in some form since ancient Greek culture.

But then he kind of got merged with the Grim Reaper at times. And then, like, the scythe thing is sort of the crossover with the Grim Reaper. I don't know. Never thought about him before. Not a guy I think about. I feel like sometimes, I feel like he's presented as just like, what does he do? Clock in, clock out, keep shit running, right? Father Time's main job, make sure things don't go backwards.

He's just got to go forward, right? Time's got to progress. And other times it's like, I'm coming. I'm collecting. He's in the Santa Claus movies, remember? Oh, yeah. Peter Boyle plays him. Yes.

Right. And then this classic, Big Beard. He's like a staff Uh-huh There's a, what's it called? Rudolph Shiny New Year The Rankin-Bass special that has a lot of Father Time and Baby New Year Baby New Year, another underexploited IP I definitely don't know what you're talking about

Well, I was going to say The main way you see Father Time Is in this sort of like mid-century greeting card Right? Where the new Baby Year is arriving I was going to say, the main way you see Father Time is in this sort of like mid-century greeting card, right? Yes. Where the new baby year is arriving and old Father Time is passing out, which actually goes back to Christmas Carol, right? Because Christmas present turns into this old man in one day. Yes.

Do the groundhogs and Father Time work together? This is the thing. There's so much I can eat here. We're not using any of it. It's pretty fungible. You can kind of do what you want with all of it. That's what's good about it. Right. But I i'm gonna make him non-fungible i'm going to mint father time as an nft but what i'm saying this is good ip obviously what i'm saying is less we should

put them in movies and more we should put them in fucking digital stamps right exactly right but yes no really want it should be father's time with his pet groundhog and baby new baby new year david the whole premise of oh, here comes the new year like a baby and some naked baby wearing a sash with a year on it and a top hat. It's one of the funniest things that's ever existed. I'm looking at it and

it is funny. I never thought about this. You know, in the Jews have the, you know, at Rosh Hashanah they talk about how like your name is getting written in the book of life. We, let's say we. We. We talk about it. We talk about it. china they they talk about how like your name is getting written in the book of life we let's say we we we talk about we talk about you and i talk about it but you're you know live with the jew though so honorary honorary and like i remember as a kid i would really focus on that that like there's some guy who's like david sims and i'm like all right another year you know like i like that yeah i like that more than a baby with a top hat

yeah um okay uh let's stop talking about this Thank you Yes, we're here to talk about Joseph Howie? That's his father, Joseph Frank That's his dad? Yeah And he is, but he is also

He's also Joseph He's a junior, hence podcast junior Hey, see? That is probably why the junior is so present in his mind. Obviously, it's like a clean branding thing to go like, what's my movie? Understand a title that's usually held by a serious person. Put junior on it. Now I play the worst version.

The less together version of that. And junior is also just so key to his persona, right? Because he grows up getting kicked around by his dad. I mean, all those movies are about some father figure. Look how cute he was! Oh, I'm looking at little pictures of baby. Oh, man. Oh, when you start researching Buster Keaton's childhood, you

don't want to leave that rabbit hole. It's so great. Can you find one without the hat, David? Because have you seen the wig they had him wear when he was a little kid? The bald wig with the Irish? Yeah. They gave him a male kid the bald wig with the with the irish yeah they gave him a male pattern baldness that was so funny it is pretty funny this thing yes yeah it's the ethnic irish costume man is there anything more romantic in my head that was obviously bad a nightmare than

vaudeville families like the turn of the century yes i mean this is it's it's so much of what is so fascinating hey i don't think i'm offended by this yeah well as an irishman i don't like that's that's not what they're like they're little not little bald babies i'm keeping my hat on sad bald babies damn uh yes yeah families dig into the buster Vaudeville story, it's complicated, to say the least. It is weird that we presented Irishmen

as these, like, bushy-haired men. You know, like, that was some sort of stereotypical, you know, presentation of an Irishman. Yeah, but the leprechaun,

right, doesn't the Lucky Charms leprechaun also have sort of like a bozo reverse mohawk kind of? He's got funny hair. I do. No, the leprechauns had that, the sort of hair just peering out wildly from underneath the hat. Yeah, Darby O'Gillis.

I guess so. It was a thing. I guess it is more of a... It's the stark red hair. Right, that becomes more of the classic thing. I guess these wigs may have been red. I'm guessing they're very. Yeah.

I think they're written up as red wigs in descriptions of the time. Yeah. I also think, you know, Itchy and Scratchy, you know, the joke about, look out, Itchy, he's Irish. It's true. He's an Irishman. You know, like, I think that was a thing back in the day. You know, actually, the father-son act is basically The Itchy and Scratchy show right

The Keaton the three Keatons With wait with Who was whatever Wait I mean Itchy is sort of the antagonist Or is Scratchy the antagonist It was Buster was Itchy And Scratchy's the cat Yeah it's the pursued and the pursuer

But of course you know the joke is always In both cartoons and in that act that the tables get turned constantly. It is, you know, digging back into Buster again. I am a longtime Buster Keaton fan, but I've been going deep back into this as we prepare to do this series. The language of cartoons like so much comes out of him. Not to give him full credit, but I feel like he crystallized a lot of things. And even that father-son act crystallized a lot of things. That's the dynamic of like Tom and Jerry and Itchy and Scratchy and most little guy, big guy. They're both trying to get the better of the other.

Yeah. I mean, that was actually a chapter of the book that never came to be because the moment their act is happening is also the exact same moment that comic strips are first appearing in American newspapers. Right. And so he grew up seeing the funnies and was among the first generation to see them. So it's one of the many, many things that he obviously just kind of magpie style pulled from popular culture without ever thinking, I will do a comic strip on stage. It was just in his brain as a kid. But then he synthesizes it into something that then makes sense in motion, which I think then gets carried into animation out of comic strips. Right.

Which shows you that movies are kind of the bridge, right? Absolutely. Live action is the bridge in between the comic strip and the cartoon. Look, there's so much to talk about here. What a crazy time. What do people do then before they look at etchings? Like, what do they do? The fact that minute three of, like, three ages is Buster going like,

and I'm going to slide down a stop motion dinosaur. Yes. Like, pretty good. Yeah, slide down a stop motion dinosaur. Yes. Like pretty good. Yeah. Is wild. Your book, Dana, is so great. I read it when it came out, or I even read it in advance

because I think your publisher very kindly sent us some copies before some other episode we recorded with you. Maybe. Oh, read it again because that galley had so many errors in it, Griffin. I'm ashamed. I had the galley

and then I've been I've been listening to it now as the audio book, which Ben, I know, has been doing as well. And we were saying right before you recorded, you have such a good voice

for audio books. You should just do them for other people's books. Oh, I wish. I love reading audio books. It's so fun. You're a legendary podcaster. Yes.

Best voice in the biz. Yes. But the thing that's so great about your book, and you've talked about that this was like the thing that's so great about your book and you've talked about this was like the thing you always not found lacking but that you wanted out of a buster keaton book that you couldn't find out there was really placing him in the context of both what feeds into him that comes out in his work and what comes out of his work that feeds into

the culture you know in both directions that he's so much like this man at the center of the culture at any moment. He's so much a product of his time. You know, a person of the 1900s who was really, you know, this figure of modernity as it was developing. Yeah, he's just such a bridge between so many modes of performance that came before or things like the comic strip we were just talking about between so many strands of pop culture that preceded him right because he's born in 1895 and then the things that came after him because he dies in 1966 and to me just that lifespan is a reason enough to to write a book about him like imagine living from 1895 to 1966 it's only 70 years he died before turned 71. Yes. But imagine how much the world changed

during those years, right? And he's so much at the heart of that and at the forefront of a lot of it, you know, making the changes himself without having ever perceived of himself as that. But then also being able to recognize things like the funnies and go like, we should be pulling from this. You know,

this is a language that should be worked into this new art form. He's such a fascinating figure. I've been a fan of his for so long. When did you become a Buster Keaton fan? When I was in high school and I went through an obsessive period, maybe freshman or sophomore year, where I decided that homework was a waste of time and I was going to watch three movies every night. A period. Three movies every night. A period. Three movies every night is too many movies.

For a night. And you may be here that the wild success of this period was I came very close to getting kicked out of high school several times. Getting kicked out of a high school that doesn't kick people out. Correct. Yeah, right.

I cannot explain how close I came to getting kicked out multiple times for the lamest reasons possible. Because people were like, were you like some hellion? Did you go through a drug phase? And I was like, no, I was just like watching silent films all night. And then refusing to write papers on ethical grounds.

Or sleep. Right, yes. Yes. But yeah, so there was this period I had, I had like a 13-inch TV VCR combo, much like the Ben porch staple. And then I think when I was in high school, I asked if we could get another cable box

to plug into that TV. And that's when like the fucking doors flew off of like, now I can just lock myself in my room and I have Turner Classic movies and I can just like watch whatever's on every night. And they had just done a restoration of the cameraman. And there was like a Robert Osborne hosted short documentary called So Funny It Hurts that I think is now still on the Criterion cameraman release. That's about his sort of rise

and fall around the MGM period, which is when he basically gives up his blank check and you know suddenly is beholden to a larger bank but i like watched those two one night and went like holy shit uh and i think this was in this phase where i'm starting to get really seriously into movies after being a big movie kid but wanting to be like i want to know my history right and so there's a lot of stuff that i'm watching compulsively as of like i need to to check that off. I need to have seen a movie like this. I need to know this time period just so I can throw out the reference points for the things. There's a lot of

you know, desperate to prove myself sort of completionism where the watching three movies a night, a lot of times I was not even enjoying watching the movies. It was a obsessive need of like, I need to know more than everyone else it becomes this obligation that's right but silent film works so great for that i've told a lot of people this while going around touring with this

book is that if you want to be some completion completionist nerd about buster keaton it only takes like two weeks you know i mean his filmography is small the films are short especially the main shit you know yeah that's what i mean what I mean. The silent, you know, golden era stuff. You can watch it all in two solid weeks. You wouldn't even be up late every night watching. That's the thing. So it was like they were just doing that sort of series. I think TCM had done this restoration themselves,

made the short documentary, and then a lot of them were playing. So like those two weeks, I was just watching Buster movies every night. And I very quickly had that thing of like, you know, you watch three movies a night. A lot of time, I mean, I'm eating fucking snack food and I'm like, you know, texting people and I'm like Googling something and I'm half doing homework I'm supposed to be doing. But then you're watching a silent film. You can't be doing anything else.

Right. You have to just be 100 percent locked in to that. Right. And so quickly, I quickly i'm like oh i'm engrossed in this i'm actually finding this funny this is not the compulsive i just want to build up my film history thing i'm like leaning into this and then he just became like one of my top guys uh so that was like 20 years ago, and I went through this compulsive phase of trying to watch as much of it as I can. And I still, you know, whenever they screen movies, his films in New York, I try to go see them again. Ben and I went and saw Sherlock Jr. this weekend. This is my first time seeing it. Ah, where was it showing?

It was at the Paris Theater. Did they have music, live music? They didn't have live music. No. I love that the Paris is showing Keaton. I did not know that. It was because Tom Luddy, the Telluride founder, died. And they did a special series of like 10 films that either he worked on or were his favorites.

So it was isolated. It was not part of a larger Keaton series, which I wish. But it was just a free screening at 1230 on a Sunday of like the most perfect 45-minute movie ever made, which we got to see with a crowd who was like 100% into it and laughing. And that's the thing that's so satisfying to me. The reason I wanted to do Keaton for so long is that like,

I think a lot of people understandably are just like, silent film might be one step further than I can go. Right? I just think that's going to feel like homework to me. I'm not going to get into this. Even if I understand the sort of nutritious vegetable quality of this.

If you have ADD like I do, it's like... It seems daunting. I don't think I could focus on it for longer than like a few minutes. But it's like going to the gym for our phone-addicted generation. Like we should all watch silent movies once a day. That may be the case with a lot of the silent canon. I mean, I at this point have been watching it so long that like when i was re-watching this stuff for this podcast i didn't have my headphones handy so i watched it truly silent

just like i was just like mainlining it you know hardcore like i don't even need music yeah just free base i do understand that there's a an obstacle to get over but i think that keaton is that's why he's the perfect entry drug, right? This is my argument. Because I've seen this happen over the past year. I've been touring this book and I have seen, you know, roomfuls of people, many of whom had never seen a silent film before or Keaton before. Kids, you know, there was a kid who went screening who had never seen a movie before. It was his first time in a movie theater seeing a real projected movie. And I think it was Sherlock Jr. that time.

And it plays every single time. There's no need for context. You know, it's just, he makes people laugh as reliably as he did 120 years ago. Sherlock Jr. is the one you can always point to where you're just like,

this feels incredibly modern. Yes. It is actually funny. You're not going like, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm. I get it. People are like, I can see why this amused

people in the Depression or whatever. It's not a historical context document. And my hope is that in doing this series, we will get people to watch these films for the first time and realize that they actually enjoy them. And they are highly accessible.

Yes. Like, more accessible than anything. Yes. This is the first miniseries we're doing where every film we're covering is in the public domain. Have you ever done a silent series before? No. No.

This is far and away i'm honored to be here exactly i would not call this a risk for us or whatever but like a few years ago we probably would have been more reticent because like you know we had the kind of podcasts where like our numbers would dip if we just did something vaguely obscure like even within a filmography maybe that was more well knownknown. If we covered someone's first movie. Catherine Bigelow's The Loveless, for example. Right, that's the example.

That used to be our, like, okay, so that's the lowest our listenership goes. Have you seen Catherine Bigelow's The Loveless, her first film? It's not bad. Very, like, heavy on the semiotics. You know, it's like,

biker boys driving their motorcycles. You know, it's very... It's semiotics thesis film. 90s grad student Bigelow. Yes, absolutely. In the 80s, but yes. And it's like an hour long, you know it's very it's semiotics thesis film 90s grad student yes 80s but yes and it's like an hour long you know but yes look i say this as a compliment to our listeners we used to use like the loveless as the metric against like uh you know uh hurt locker or point break in that same series right yeah where we were like you know okay if we do the loveless we will get 50 of our regular weekly listenership if we do the hurt locker or point

break it'll maybe go 25 above what a regular listenership is and then the ones that are sort of in the middle you know that's whatever our baseline number is and over the last couple of years our numbers have remained very consistent where it feels like oh people will actually seek out the movie we're talking about and watch it and not just wait for the episode to be something they've already seen with this so it just felt like let's let's let's try to do this but we've never done silent up until this point the earliest film we have covered on the podcast is fear and desire yeah the first film we've never gone back to is Fear and Desire. Yeah, the 50s. Kubrick's first film.

We've never gone back to the 20s. So we're going three decades earlier than we've ever done, which is exciting for me. Yeah. But yes, I'm hoping the feeling everyone will have watching these movies is, oh, these feel a lot more present and relevant than I expected. Yeah, there's no question that Keaton has survived for the modern sensibility and modern sense of humor better than any comedian from that time, I think. I would agree with that. And I would agree with that over, say, Chaplin.

I mean, just in terms of broad audience appeal is what I'm saying. I'm not even rating their artistry right now. Like, obviously, I wrote the book on the one that I prefer of the two. But even not comparing that, just they play better. They feel more modern and that's no beef with uh charlie c look i i love chaplin as well i greatly prefer buster keaton if i

pit them against each other in comparison conversations across the next couple of weeks it's not because i want to shit on chaplin it's more that i want to spotlight the things i think make buster particularly unique but i I think the Chaplin staying power has been more rooted in... His films work so strongly as emotional stories, right? That even as perhaps the comedy in them went a little bit out of fashion, there are movies that still play as like,

well, there's an arc here that I understand. There are these clear emotional through lines. And then someone like Harold Lloyd, who I think often gets put into this box of like, well, there's an arc here that I understand. There are these clear emotional through lines. And then someone like Harold Lloyd, who I think often gets put into this box of like, that's someone you can watch and you understand the craft and the technique of what he's doing. For a lot of people, you know? I mean, I like Charlie.

Now I feel mean that I was... I'm not being negative. What's, you know... City Lights at the end, he's crying. This is what I'm saying. But that's my point. I'm like, the City Lights ending is like a thing that cuts through. Where even if someone's watching it and they're like, I don't know if I find this funny today.

You're going to find him, like the kid running to him. Right. Yeah, the kid is my favorite Chaplin feature, I think still. You know, and the best Chaplin of all is the shorts. The really anarchic. Which is sort of how you feel about Buster too, right? When I was like, hey, Dana, we're doing Buster Keaton. Like, you know, are you interested in anything in particular?

You were kind of like, well, the shorts are the most interesting. Well, I'm so happy we're doing a bonus segment on the shorts. Patreon will come out in four days, May 11th. But I have to say the reason when you gave me this very tempting list of different shows to select from, I was really torn because these two movies we're talking about today, Three Ages and Our Hospitality, while great, are not my favorite Keatons at all. Like Three Ages is nobody's favorite Buster Keaton movie. It's his very first feature and it's like it feels very primordial in some ways.

But I just wanted to be in on the ground floor of this series. I think you're the perfect person to help us set context for all this. I do think, though, if anyone watched these two movies and they're like, I'm not as on board as Griffin and Dana are, maybe I'm not as on board as griffin and dana are maybe i'm not a buster keaton guy you're watching two movies where he's figuring it out and they have moments of absolute brilliance and technique uh skill at display but i think after this point is when he's really firing in all cylinders and it really doesn't matter where you enter in there's no need to start here. You know, I mean, I often tell people to watch The Cameraman first if they want to start with a feature.

Cameraman and Sherlock are the two that I always recommend to people that I think just follow the modern rhythms of films. And then my personal favorite, I mean, it's something that changes throughout your life, but I would say Steamboat Bill Jr. is just my personal favorite Keaton movie. It gets a whole chapter in the book because there's just so much there. What's your personal favorite? My personal favorite is Cameraman. I think Sherlock Jr. is the best, quote unquote.

But I'm also like, I just think that's one of the best movies ever made. I think that's just a perfect work. Steamboat Bill Jr. is the one I've never liked as much as other people, but I'm very excited to rewatch it for this. I have no problem with it. I think maybe for me, it's just because it's it represents it. If you know something about his career in life, it becomes a film that you see is very pivotal. You know, it's his last independent, true independent movie, right? The last movie in which he did exactly what he wanted to do. It echoes things from his own life and the

junior stuff we were talking about, you know, resolving his relationship with his dad. Yes. In this way that feels completely unconscious and organic, right? Like he's not Ari Aster. He's not setting out to resolve some emotional issue. He's just trying to make people laugh. But in his own life, he's at this moment where he's starting to let go of the shtick he and his dad had done, you know? And so it brings up this very poignant question of what would he have done next if he had still kept his freedom after that year? Absolutely. No, I,

I always enjoyed it and it's one I've rewatched less and I'm excited to rewatch it with the context of, you know, your book. I just preferred when he was a mouse. I mean, we had to, I had to make that joke.

Right. That is a parody of Steamboat Bill in some sense, right? At least in title. Yeah. Here's another, I mean, here's another thing.

I think a lot of the Disney animation is very influenced by Chaplin, which I think was even basically acknowledged by Walt Disney at the time. Mickey Mouse is Chaplin. Mickey Mouse is a Chaplin character. Looney Tunes really feels like the descendant of Buster Keaton.

Absolutely. Yeah, he's much more of a Bugs. Yeah, and even though the persona is different, Bugs is so much more aggressive. Yeah. I was like, even watching Sherlock Jr. with Ben,

I was pointing out how many gags are sort of setting up the type of cartoon logic that animation's going to run off of for the next 60 years. There's things,

even in Three Ages, in particular, where you're just like, that's not a big physical stunt. That's not classically what people would think of is as maybe

Buster Keaton's skill as a gag writer in the popular, uh, the mainstream consciousness. But I think it's as much a part of his core genius is his sort of subtle rewriting of reality, uh, in ways that feel like they can get out of static truths or point out the

absurdities of our own lives and absurdities. David. David. Yes. Looking at our ad copy for this week. Yeah. And it says, intros and thoughts, daughters. Yeah. Not a script.

Use these ideas as a starting point. Put your own words. And that's highlighted. It says, host ad lib. Yeah. Give a shout out to a member of your team who works tirelessly behind the scenes. And you know who I'm going to choose to make that shout out to a member of your team Who works tirelessly behind the scenes And you know who I'm going to choose To make that shout out to?

Me, David Sims? Ben Hosley What? Come on Ben, you're actually probably the biggest user of Stamps.com Of any of us This is why I'm saying this And you know, they help businesses like yours and ours

Save time and money It says if you have someone who specifically handles shipping, and that's definitely Ben. I want to talk about how hard they work and what an important piece of the puzzle they are. Ben, this show wouldn't exist without you. Well, I really appreciate it. It wouldn't exist in its infancy, and you're the one who keeps it afloat. That's also true, but it also just wouldn't exist without Stamps.com. That's the thing.

Because all you need is a computer and a printer, and they send you a free scale. You have everything you need to get started. ben's the most important member of this team right ben's like number one then stamps.com and then like maybe griffin and david tied or whatever and then griffin and day and honestly jj and alex and jj yeah a lot of good right we're at the bottom of the total yeah exactly look if you need a package pickup, you can schedule it through your Stamps.com dashboard. If you sell products online, wow, Stamps.com seamlessly connects with every major marketplace and shopping cart. They got some premium discounts.

Sure. Up to 84% off UPS and USPS rates. David said wow because there was a lot of noise coming from the hallway. And that noise was a barrage of people just going Stamps.com. Stamps. Stamps. Stamps. Stamps. Stamps. Stamps. For 25 25 years they've been indispensable for over a million businesses and you can get access to

usps and ups services you need right from your computer anytime day or night no lines no traffic no waiting set up your business for success when you get started with stamps.com today sign up with promo code check for a special offer that includes a four-week trial plus free postage and a free digital scale. No long-term commitments or contracts. Just go to stamps.com, click the microphone at the top of the page and enter code check. They want us to shout out a member of our

team and basically we just shouted out how much we like stamps.com. We do. It's good. We directed it back to them. Stamps.com slash check. Microphone. Top of the page. Microphone. Click the microphone. You better do it. Thanks, guys.com which is good stamps.com slash check microphone top of the page microphone click the microphone you better do it thanks guys you're welcome

anytime Buster Keaton he's the son of Joseph Halley Keaton yes born 1867 in Terre Haute, Indiana did you know that?

Dana, I bet you didn't I don't think I could have gotten his father's birthday shame on me yeah, actually that is crazy that our researcher put his father's birthday in here I briefly interpreted this as being Buster's birthday and I was yeah actually that is crazy that our researcher put his father's

birthday yes i briefly interpreted this as being buster's and i was like wait buster keaton was in his 50s he was making me it looks great incredible yeah um he died at age 99 in that case right and uh during the land rush of 1889 i mean which the land rush That's just when white people went west And had like one shotgun and would just sort of be like These 200 acres Mine Joe Keaton Like right like that's what the land rush basically is Yeah I mean the Oklahoma version of it was literally a day

A particular day that was set And people were just It was like they were waiting to get into a show or something They were just camped out around the perimeter Waiting to go in and plant their flag It was right Terrible country Trying to get Taylor Swift tickets without crashing Ticketmaster or whatever.

Right. Then, and Dana, honestly, you may know this stuff better than me, but he eventually ends up wanting to go to California in search of performance. Like, he wants to perform, but he ends up back in Oklahoma, meets Myra Cutler, who is Buster's mother, right?

And they start performing together. Yeah, they joined a medicine show, basically. I mean, I feel like the key thing to realize. A medicine show? What the hell is a medicine show? Yeah, baby, here we go. I mean, basically, they were out in the prairie, right? And they toured around, probably in wagons. I don't think that trains were probably even extended across the country enough at that point

that they were taking trains as the three Keatons did later on. They were just going by wagon from town to town with various outfits. And the thing that's key to understand, I feel like, about his birth

and early childhood is that it's not that he joined a performing family and was trained by the performing family. It's more that his parents were a failed vaudeville act or not even vaudeville,

a failed medicine show touring act that was barely getting by because they had no real skills to offer his dad was an acrobat yes right um so the is that wait is the idea of a medicine show it's like they do some jokes and then someone comes out and is like buy this yeah they're selling snake oil it's all it's all right it was yeah yeah you have you have a sort of a traveling carriage, right? That's like performers and salespeople. Right, the tonics alongside the whatever.

It was basically the primetime television of its day. Where it's like, here's just a collection of different... It must have been so easy back then because people had so many ailments, right? Like, it was such a hard life. But look, that's what it... You watch Friends at 8 o'clock, they sell you blood pressure medication. It's true. And then Frasier starts or whatever. It's true, I can't deny. That's what you fucking you watch friends at eight o'clock. They sell you blood pressure medication. And then Frazier starts.

That's what it was like. Someone would come out and do a routine and someone come out and be like, baldness is a thing of the past. Another guy would come out and do a backflip. Like that's what a medicine show was. It's so similar. Like the context of it feels wildly different because you're out in the middle of the plains and whatever or in a small town.

But it was it's very similar to how we absorb entertainment. It's true. Entertainment and advertising were intertwined right from from the start of the 20th century. And such a fascinating thing you get into in your book is like when film is starting to develop and its actualities, you know, it's like little newsreels. It's what I guess newsreels come later. But, you know, these very, very short subject things and Nickelodeons and all of that, all the reporting at the time of is like it's going to be bad for the young generation's brains to watch this much stuff this quickly. Yeah. And the rhetoric really is exactly the same as it was about television and the Internet. Yeah. Everything that's come since.

Right. Oh, these kids are just being overloaded with stimuli. And all this is like short form nonsense with no substance. Well, because here's another date that's key to understand. Like 1867, we can dispense with in Terre Haute. But 1895 in Pequay, Kansas, when Buster Keaton is born, is also the year and just a couple months away from the date that movies are projected for the first time by the Lumiere brothers. And that's the fact that, you know, it comes up in every Keaton biography

because it's a neat coincidence. But if you really think about what that means, they're born together, but that also means they grow up together, right? And so that means as he's traveling with these shows, which when he joined the act around age five, start to become top line vaudeville shows in the best circuits,

they're showing movies with every show and that's the first way most americans saw movies right so they went to see a guy you know jump onto a bucket or whatever and then at the very end there's a couple short two minute movies i love a bucket act yeah i do like a guy who's just like just one bucket and you're like i mean what is it and he can do so much with it ben you've been listening to the book so you know this. David, do you know what Joe Keaton's senior big thing was? I don't know.

He was a table act. Oh, he would like do stuff. The man with the table. The man with the table. His thing was like, you won't believe what you see me do with this fucking table. And they hauled the wood table around the country. Yeah, the one table. It was like, oh, fuck, he brought the table?

That's going to be good. Yeah, the one table. It was like, oh, fuck, he brought the table? Yeah. That's going to be good. As you alluded to already, supposedly Buster gets his name because he fell down a flight of stairs. And somebody said, that's sure a Buster. And Buster would often claim Harry Houdini had said this. Some version of this definitely happened. And there's debate as to when it happened in front of which person who coined the term or whatever. Basically, the kid falls down a flight of stairs.

He has no reaction. He doesn't seem injured. He gets back up. Right. And some adult friends of his parents said, wow, that kid can really take a buster. He's a regular buster. Or he's a little buster. Or what a buster.

Or something like that. And it kind of sticks. But he points, as you bring up, Dana, Buster is kind of this anti-Nepo kid. And it's this thing that I think in this exhausting discourse that's happening now doesn't get discussed as much, which is like the amount of children who are the amount of, let's say, stage kids who are the children of like failed showbiz people, people who like committed their whole career to it and spent their entire lives kind of at the margins. And there's some X factor missing. It's like what if Salieri was Mozart's

dad? Correct. Correct. And there's like a ton of that, you know, and still is to this day. But he has this father who had all the ambition and it just it never totally connected whether it was there was some element of him that was unlikable there was some self-destructive strain in him uh there was some lack of ingenuity or charisma or whatever is or all of it combined he was really a better pitchman than anything else you know which came in really handy when he had a performing prodigy for a son but a guy who on paper is like he certainly he learned every type of act. He had all the experience. He had the skill set. He knew a ton of people, too. It seems like he. Yeah, because Harry Houdini was a good friend. And yeah, he definitely was a social guy. He's not making up

the Harry Houdini thing a whole class. His parents traveled with Houdini for a while. Yeah, for sure. But it's like when you read biographies about, you know, sort of artists when there are movements, right, where six people come up in the same wave and you're like, know, sort of artists when there are movements, right, where six people come up in the same wave. And you're like, well, five of those guys became totemic figures in society. Who's this fucking six guy who's in 12 chapters but never did anything of importance? And you're like, there's just always sort of that guy in the group who is in the right place, doing the right work with the right people and just never totally connected in the same way.

Right. This kid falls down a flight of stairs and immediately is funny than anything he's ever done. Like it is not to reduce it, but it is like they just immediately realize like, oh, this kid's the fucking juice. That was actually the thing that surprised me most in research, I think, is that, you know, I'd read a lot of biographies of him by that time. I knew he was a child star.

He wasn't just a child performer. He was like the reason you went to see the act, right? He became the act. But like when you trace in the press of the time, how quickly that happened, that was what really boggled me, is that he first performs, you know, really on stage with them in any way other than just coming out to be cute for a minute or something when he had just turned five. And six months later, he's being billed as, you know, they don't even mention the parents' names. You know, they say, the three Keatons starring Buster. And he's the one who gets the little write-up about,

and he's being talked about by, you know, vaudeville critics, whatever those were, because that's sort of in between Pitchman and Critic in those days, right? But people were genuinely wowed by the performance of this five-and-a-half-year-old kid. And by the time he's six years old, like one year into performing,

they've gone from, you know, the Mohawk Indian Medicine Show in Kansas to like Pastors and Keith's and the Orpheum and the big vaudeville circuits. Right. And you talk about this in your book, but he was such a sensation that he was the subject of the sort of stars.

They're just like us pieces. You have pieces about Buster in like single digit years about like, he's a normal kid. He plays with his train set. You know, he's just a happy little kid. Right.

He might get on stage, but other than that, he's just like you. Well, and it was this weird, like A, the public was so obsessed with him. They wanted to know more about him.

But B, Joe Sr. needed to really sell in order for the act to continue to grow. He is not damaged by this at all you know right well one of their taglines was the boy who couldn't be damaged the boy who can't be damaged can't be damaged right which that is very much like my shirt about my boy who can't be

damaged answers a lot of the questions yeah it's it's so like this is not a fast a flash fast forward to his midlife not Not at all. Right. He can't be damaged. It's easy. Throw him against the wall. See, he's fine. The human mop, apparently another. That was a big.

Another nickname. Yeah. Yeah. So there, there was. A lot of rough housing. It seems like was the. Right. Well, even, even in these early years that we're starting to be the conversation of like,

is this inhumane to make kids be part of acts like this? I would say also that is the era when the sort of, what's this, you know, Jacob Rees era, where like humanity is starting to think like, should children work? I mean, we've been letting them do it, but. Right. Yeah, you know, child labor laws and child abuse laws

and all that stuff. Well, this is in the book, so you know already, but it was almost completely contiguous with that. Maybe a generation before, but that means that, you know, Busters was the first generation to actually be impacted by the reforms because they were written into law. Pushed along by the grandson of the man who invented gerrymandering? Yeah. Well, yeah. I mean, Elbridge Gerry, who started this child labor movement, was a lawyer and a kind of progressive reformer. Right. Great grandson of a former vice president. Yeah, he was the first president.

For whom gerrymandering. I believe it's pronounced Gary, actually. Yes. Sorry. Right. The Jerry family. But nobody says gerrymandering. So we've just kind of back formation.

You're right. You're right. It's Gary. But his grandson is the one who really starts pushing this child labor thing as kids are becoming a bigger part of acts. There's some playground down by the Manhattan Bridge that's a very early playground. And I read some story about it once. And it was like they were like, kids need someone to blow off after like all the work

they do at the factory. Like that's when they were building. Basically. And that's also when cars were coming about. Right. So kids were getting crushed by cars constantly. I mean, if you read about like the situation of children at the turn of the 20th century, it's nuts how much it changed

in about 20 years. And look, as we never should have had cars. We really should have put I've been saying this forever. It really is crazy. I'm on the record as always saying this.

They were just like, you know, running around smashing into people. The only cars that I trust have big eyes and tongues and say ka-chow. Those are the only cars that should exist.

They should exist safely within screens. I feel like people were encouraged to drink while driving. Right. You're supposed to be intoxicated. You were supposed to drink gasoline and pour alcohol into the tank. And that was the ideal way to take to the road. The human mop thing, David, was sort of, Joe Sr. for years was constantly trying to find ways to skirt around

legally having Buster be part of the show. So it was like, it's illegal for kids to do acrobat acts. And he's like, cool, my kid's not an acrobat. He's a prop. Right, he's a mop. I put a fucking mop on him and I hold him by his feet and I mop the floor with him. And then he would just get bigger laughs as a

mop than anything his dad was doing. Yeah, so wow, he would just constantly be upstaging his jealous dad oh and the upstaging was part of the act as well the whole fucking key to the thing was he would joe would bring buster out as the like i'm gonna now offer an instructional to parents on how to rear your child and he'd be downstage where he couldn't see the kid right it was the whole bit is that he's looking at the back of Buster's head from the audience's view. And he's going, I'm going to make example this kid.

I'm going to show you how to lay down the law with children. And Buster would always get the better of him. Joe would be oblivious to what was happening until it was too late. And at some early point, they realize when Buster sort of does the full Bugs Bunny ain't I a stinker sort of wagging his eyebrows at the audience and grinning he the audience gets a little turned off it becomes a little too sadistic a little too Clifford a little so that's how he has to be stone-faced right and then the first time he's stone-faced when it's happening and I think that largely comes out of when they're doing the mop act and the things like that where he's supposed to be

right right less present less alive kind of a passive object which happens in so many of his movies too right it's somebody else besides his dad usually but he's he's constantly being sort of treated as a projectile anytime they do that to him on stage the audience laughs twice as much so his dad they start to get into the routine of his dad just yelling, face, face, face. If he feels like he's starting to laugh or he's starting to enjoy it. The dynamic is the dad always thinks that he's going to punish the kid. The kid's somehow going to get the better of the dad. And the kid never seems to enjoy it. He's unreadable.

Here's the buster quote. The law read that a child can't do acrobatics, can't walk a wire, can't juggle, a lot of those things. But there's nothing said in the law. You can't kick him in the face or throw him through a piece of scenery. It feels like some air Bud logic of like no one wrote that down. But I don't know. Feels like that's a given that you shouldn't throw

children through scenery. Well, they kept on like trying to like tighten the lines and then Joe would find another space between words. And then like the mayor would show up again and be like I told you to stop doing this. You know what? What? Sorry, I didn't wrap, I told you to stop doing this. You know what? What? Sorry to interrupt you. No, no, please.

You know, in his movies, that same dynamic is happening constantly, right? Where the audience is kind of on a seesaw in between laughing and gasping, right? And you even see it in Our Hospitality, the big rescue, you know? He always, always builds to some moment where danger and comedy kind of meet, you know? This is why all of this is so important, not just as context for how it gets to the point where he's making movies, but how his persona is honed. It's also pretty interesting.

Oh, it's interesting. But his persona is not something that's like designed in a lab of like how to make a relatable character, you know? It's like this weird push and pull over like two decades of him trying out different things and landing in this odd space can i say one of the other acts that i love that you talk about in the book is uh when ira is the

mother's name myra myra she's a stage playing saxophone right and dad is using a straight razor, shaving. Okay. And Buster is then walking on stage, swinging a basketball on a string. A basketball? Yes. Okay, okay. Basketball, big part of Buster's act as a kid. Okay. Like an old-fashioned basketball, obviously.

The basketball was like his rosebud. It was like the one nice present he got for being a good boy, and then they worked it into the act a lot. Right. Basketball and a table. That's all you need for comedy. that's what i'm saying like that that was their act it was she was playing saxophone right he was shaving right and the audience is being like oh he's gonna cut his throat right with this spinning basketball on a rope it's so bizarre like this domestic scenario something for everyone. Something for everyone. Totally. If you don't like to shave,

well, then you must love the sex. Here's another thing that will be so key for the rest of his career in terms of how his sensibility in comedy is set up is the tension, right? Yes. Clearly setting up the stakes, the tension. How could things go wrong here? Because he's not someone who's trying to like...

There's the quote here that you know you can easily poke holes in i don't know if we can pull up the exact verbatim one but in um what is it my life in slapstick which is the autobiography my wonderful world slapstick yes sorry uh that is him sort of as told to telling his life story in his later years and and buster tried to define the difference between him and Chaplin and their screen personas, the tramp versus the sort of Buster in quotes persona. And his thing he said was the tramp is always trying to like get away with something. The tramp is always sort of trying to pull one over. He's trying to avoid working. He's trying to get ahead. He knows what he's doing. And Buster's kind of oblivious, right? There's an innocence to Buster

swinging a basketball around his head on a rope, even as that seems an absurd thing to do. It's his magic as a performer is he's able to convey that he genuinely doesn't understand that's a dangerous act.

Right. And it's so much about setting up, well, okay, you're swinging a basketball and there's a guy here with a razor. I know the ways in which this could go wrong. And so often the magic in a Buster movie is somehow it goes right yeah and then it figures itself out it figures itself out in a way that feels like this guy is somehow rewriting the

laws of logic and physics and time around him just by existing but yes all this stuff playing with the ball you know, fucking with his parents. It is this weird, uncomfortable balance of like, Joe Sr., a piece of work, an alcoholic, an angry man. But Buster genuinely seemed to take to these things, even though he was working in a way that no child should work. This was not by any accounts a case where they were like drilling stuff into him in a way that was abusive. Him being in this environment was obviously fairly abusive to begin with.

But there was this weird X factor of he genuinely seemed to avoid injury. Many times they would go to a town. They would get like inspect get him inspected. Right. The mayor, the governor, the senator would be like this we're gonna be the fucking people to finally shut this act down we're gonna fucking open up the books and realize every bone in this kid's body is broken and they'd look at him they'd be like seems happy body fine it was yes that indestructible quality right uh massachusetts

thought i was a midget buster keaton says at one point so i guess they thought he was like yeah a man pretending to be a child yes um yeah eventually in 1907 but the more they try to prove and and fail the more his star increases because it's like this sort of feels like cruelty free entertainment to the masses of like i don't know i just read in the paper that this kid's happy um right well but in 1907 when he's about 12 they get served with warrants in new york city and like he's barred from performing until he's 16 only new york state only new york because of state law but because new york was the center of vaudeville they have to then switch things up and start touring is that sort of what happens there they were always touring i mean that's what vaudeville was but it's just that new y York was the center of vaudeville, they have to then switch things up and start touring. Is that sort of what happens there?

No, they were always touring. I mean, that's what vaudeville was. But it's just that New York was the most lucrative. So that was definitely, that was a tough two years for them where they had to stay in New York. And also he's growing up. So like the kid thing is getting less and less. He's going through the classic. Is this still funny anymore?

Are we finding him cute anymore? He's having to like figure out how to evolve the persona a bit. The dad also started drinking a lot more in that era. So yeah, there's this period in his teens where the act was in transition. It started to get some negative reviews, although he continued, it seems like Keaton continued

to sort of charm his way out of it, but his dad was becoming less functional, both as a father and as a performer. Yeah, and the critics were going like, this is still funny, but are we like a year away from this getting old? It feels like it starts to become more Homer versus Bart Simpson.

Yes. Right? Where like he's choking Bart. Yes. And there's a scary part to it. Yes, right. Like how real is this? Right, and Buster would say like,

oh, it got to, we start the show, I smell the whiskey from across the stage. I know this is going to be a bad one, you know? It's suddenly everything got more hostile, more tense. 1916 seems to be when they finally abandon the dad. Yes. In California.

Yeah, this is such a biopic moment, right? It's impossible not to imagine the drama of that moment because it's the moment that, yeah, he and his mother the mom asks him myra asks buster on a train yeah right i mean can't you see this scene like they're on a train going to their next gig and she basically says i can't take it anymore because the father's become abusive you know he's drinking all the time he has two younger siblings at this point who are totally dependent on the income that buster is bringing in well this is right this other wild dynamic is that buster is the breadwinner of the family. Meanwhile, his two siblings are being raised in a, like, indescribably more normal childhood.

Right. Because they now have means. They're, like, at a boarding school. They have creature comforts. They're getting education. Buster never went to school. At one point, they said... They sent him to school for one day once.

Right. There was this idea of, like... He went to school for hard knocks. Hey they said... They sent him to school for one day once. Right. There was this idea of like... He went to school for hard knocks. Hey, there was this idea that like, Ben, you will like this,

that like, well, if we're touring, maybe when we're in the town, send him to school during the day before the night of the show. He'll do like,

he'll pop in for a day, you know? He'll sit in on classes or whatever. And he goes to one class one school the first time they try this out and he had these routines so like baked into his brains and it had to both participate in and watch so many acts that were based around like kids misbehaving in school that anything the teacher said to him he or not said to him, said to the class, any question posed, he had like a snappy comeback to.

He had like a fucking one liner to the point where within 45 minutes, he was like, get the fuck out. Yeah. You don't think of that. He was actually a verbal comic in those days. Right. Like you go crazy trying to think because the act was never filmed, of course. Right. Like most Bobville acts weren't like it changed all the time.

A lot of it really was based on things like vocal impressions, songs. Ben was asking. You know, snappy comebacks, like you say. So even though we think of him as the, you know, the ultimate pantomimist and the guy who never speaks, there was actually a big verbal and sung element. So one-liners. Is that why silent films obviously were silent films and they were successful? But when they were starting to bring in sound

People were like well this will never work Because I'll just go see a show If I want to hear comedy Or whatever Because when you now learn During the transition to sound That people were like Fad

People in the industry were Like Louis B. Mayer thought that But audiences loved sound I know they loved it But it's just weird that anyone would think fad. Well, people in the industry were. Like, Louis B. Mayer thought that. Irving Thalberg thought that. But audiences loved Sam. I know they loved him, but it's just weird that anyone would think, like, well, no one's going to want to be able to hear anything. Doesn't that happen basically every single time?

It's weird. Of course. You mean every time there's a technological change? That there's some shift in the medium. Right. Well, that's not what people actually want. Like, would Louis B. Mayer be sitting there being like, if people wanted to hear Buster Keaton talk, they could go see him talk, you know, like they could hear that

on a stage. Like that's what the stage is for and the films are for this. Not only that, but you have radio. Right. You have radio. Ben and I, we had a walk around the circumference of Central Park after watching Sherlock and he was sort of asking about it. We ate a hot dog.

Which felt very Depression era. Very, yeah. That's very early 20th century. We got a C dog, which felt very depression. Very, yeah. That's very early 20th century. Coney Island knee high. We talked about Vaudeville. But Ben was asking me, like, so he was verbal.

So he, like, knew how to do verbal gags. And I was like, yeah, he did. And it's interesting watching both Three Ages and Our Hospitality. Three Ages in particular,

his characters talk a lot more than they do in the later films. Even if you're not throwing up intertitles to show his they do in the later films even if you're not throwing up intertitles to show his dialogue in the later films you rarely even see him open his mouth the character is portrayed as being more silent in his day-to-day life rather than you just you the audience aren't hearing him and i think that's really him discovering himself you know doesn't need it it's funnier if this character is sort of a mystery to the people

around him as well not just the audience but like yeah we were saying the you know in the in the 30s when he's at mgm they try to pair him up with jimmy durant who's like the exact opposite of who he is as a performer in so many ways and it's like these guys are both mega stars but they're coming from different tracks at that point and durant Durante is someone who's, like, incredibly famous but from the radio. He's got the schnoz. Right. This guy's got a funny look and he can say things and sing songs and whatever, but, like, he's not

a physical comedian. He's a funny presence. The idea of them in a buddy comedy does not work at all. It's so wrong, and they kept on doing it over and over again. It's like mashing, you know, two Barbies together. Peanut butter and pickles or whatever. I find them interesting, but they're odd to watch.

And you're like, Buster knows how to sell a verbal gag better than Durante knows how to do a physical gag. But it still feels incorrect to watch them do it. David. What? You like games? Nope. Yes. You do. Don't. Don't. I love games. I love games. Let's barrel through. You like video games? No. Yes. You do. Don't get ahead of me here. I love games. I love games. Let's barrel

through. You like video games? Yeah. Bored. Yeah. Mind? Not B-O-R-E-D to quote Norm Macdonald. You like games that keep you engaged, right? Yeah. Let me describe a game you would hate. Okay. A game where no one wins. You're talking about the waiting game.

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Need to hire. You need Indeed. Bye. But yes, the shift is happening. It's starting to happen. Where are we in the context? Yeah, well, so, you know, right, at this point, eventually... He breaks up the act, 1916.

The act is broken up. His mom goes to Detroit, it sounds like. That's where she settles, I guess. Well, I mean, his parents ended up basically following him around for the rest of his life. Like, this is a crazy thing about the three Keatons or the five Keatons, including his siblings, is that they never really stop living at least very close to each other, if not actually in the same house. No, I mean, Joe, Joe Sr.'s obviously in our hospitality.

Joe Schenck, a booking manager for Mark Slow, who was early in whatever, the Keaton. You must know this, Dana. I hate reading this. Okay, well, I can set up who Joe Skank is because he's a huge character in Buster's life. He was a mogul, right?

One of the many Jewish movie moguls who came from another industry, which in his case was the amusement park industry, right? Makes complete sense that that would sort of flow into, you know, Nickelodeon's theater, movie productions, et cetera.

And he becomes an independent producer who for all of those golden years that we're talking about of the 1920s is underwriting buster's movies he's right he's funding his production companies the buster keaton productions and he is also importantly buster keaton's brother-in-law because keaton's not married yet but when he marries he will marry the sister of the talmadge sisters who were two big violent movie stars, Norman and Constance Talmadge. Who is the female lead in Our Hospitality, her final acting role ever.

Yeah, not really an actress. No. He was also producing Fatty Arbuckle shorts at this time, right? Like he's the one who thinks to put Keaton and Arbuckle together. It's such a fascinating thing where you're like, once again, you think about the confluence of all these things happening, right? He's sort of hitting developmental ages where he's going to need to figure out how his persona changes if he's no longer the little kid right he's starting to mature then also they're leaving joe so he needs to become a solo act he needs to figure out who he is

comedically outside of that movies are coming in and also joe is no longer steering his career so it's like, he's got to make choices. He's got to figure out who he is in a changing body and who he is removed from the context of this other comedic figure.

Yeah. And movies are coming up. Shank is the one who goes like, you should meet Arbuckle. Roscoe. Right.

Right. And basically, like, just sends him to go visit the set. Yeah. I mean, it was actually a guy

he knew from vaudeville that sent him there but yeah joe skank was sort of the the connector between the two of them and that's another biopic moment for me is that the vaudeville guy there's people who are credited for maybe nudging them all but it makes complete sense because you know he was a star in vaudeville arbuckle's a star in movies they obviously knew each other's work right and so it's just the moment where their paths cross and it's another great biopic scene right that's the the chapter about pancakes in the book because keaton remembers in that same as told to memoir that the morning of the day he met arbuckle which changed his life and brought him from the stage to the screen he stopped for

pancakes at this at this chain pancake restaurant which you know sent me down a whole rabbit hole of like what was it to go out for pancakes in 1917? I could do with pancakes. I want some pancakes. It was the big thing. Yeah. What's the name of the chain again? The Child's Restaurant chain. Yes.

But, like, their whole thing was, like, any type of pancake you want. It just looks so appealing from the old photos. It's just a white-tiled room where you can get all the pancakes you want. Incredible. But, yeah, you know, Rasko, like, opens up the camera, and he immediately sees in this guy not just that he's obviously like uh he respects his work as a comedian but he sees how buster kind of like lights up at being on set and realizing like oh this is a whole other fucking medium with a lot of new possibility and so roscoe immediately sort of goes like here's the

camera here's how this works here's what you can do with it immediately takes him under his wing and buster who i think was thought like let's get him in there as a performer let's maybe help him have him help write gags is also now getting really into the technology of the thing and very quickly sort of unofficially becomes assistant director right and passes on certain sort of tenets, like he doesn't really use a script, right? Arbuckle, neither did Keaton, really. He didn't, like, write down a script.

Right. Until the MGM era. And also, Arbuckle is like, just shoot lots and lots of footage, and you will, like, edit it into the best parts. Yeah. Which I guess was not totally typical at the time. I don't know.

Like, this is being presented to me in this research dossier i didn't know that arbuckle was known for having a huge shooting ratio actually it was like shooting over abundance of footage and keaton would do that too right like you know i guess by senate standards right arbuckle was coming from the max senate keystone studio where they were so such keepskates yeah they were just getting it done fast right and so arbuckle was quite artful really for somebody making movies in 1917 i've really never seen much fatty arbuckle stuff like i i mean this is not that stuff if you want to talk about being a completist it's very easy to tack on the 14 shorts they made together and they're really

really interesting to see at least some of them yeah i think we should throw one maybe into the Patreon episode, which we'll discuss May 11th. But they're all, right now at the time we're recording this, Criterion has their series, and there's a sub-series called Buster's Beginnings that contains, I believe they have all four of the Arbuckle Keaton shorts. And it's right, yeah, because like

Keaton is figuring out his comedic persona, but in shorts that are not being driven by him. Right. So you get to see him do things that he would never do in his own movies, like cry, laugh, you know, play various characters. He didn't really have that set character yet. Sometimes he had the pork pie hat. You know, he usually had the deadpan, but he really is just a utility player who's doing whatever he needs to do. What is Fanny Arbuckle's thing?

Like apart from being a big garrulous man, like what is his on-screen persona like? How would you describe it? I mean, it's not what you would expect at all. He's extremely sweet. Yes. I mean, because it's associated with this scandal, which we can get to later on, like I think maybe people would think that he,

that he has some of that Chaplin kind of raunchy side, the way Chaplin was always sort of like, you know, waggling his eyebrows at the ladies or something. There's a lecherous quality that is not there. He's almost like a children's entertainer. But maybe that's why it was even more shocking to the public, right, when he was in this sex scandal.

There's something very childlike about him without him seeming dumb or infantile, you know? He's a nice boy. He's very gender bending. And there's a lot about this in the book too. Like he wore drag wonderfully. He had this character, Miss Fatty. Right.

And when he became Miss Fatty, he just it was there was no misogyny at all. You know, there's some scenes where he as Miss Fatty flirts with Buster. Right. Mainly in Good Night Nurse, which I think is the best, the funniest short they made together. I watched Good Night Nurse. Isn't it so good? Yeah. He's covered in like blood.

Buster. Oh, yeah. There's tons of dark humor, gory humor. Yeah. Smock is like covered in blood but they have this whole drawn out thing where they're like each flirting with each other yeah and it goes on for so long in a way where i'm like this bit is very like modern like i could see someone doing it in fact it takes so long sure sure just like it wasn't improv scene really you know they were ad-libbing it And a fun thing about that scene is you can see them.

You can see Buster trying not to crack up. Right. I mean, it's really clear that they're friends, that they had a very strong offscreen friendship at that time, you know, and mentorship. So that short is great for that reason, too. But it's once again very similar to Bugs Bunny where the joke becomes, you know, it goes from being, oh, he's going to put on a dress and pretend to be a woman to get the better of someone or whatever. Right. And then the joke quickly becomes, oh, he's like really in this. The joke is that there's no joke anymore. The joke is that he's not doing it mockingly, you know, that it's not just a trick, that it's like such a full transformation. But I do think to some extent, Arbuckle's persona was maybe more malleable than, you

know, when Lloyd Keaton and Chaplin come and all have such clearly defined, this is what my movie star persona is. Arbuckle was at such an early stage that just being funny on screen was enough to give you a reputation rather than necessarily needing a continuity of here is the classically defined Arbuckle leading role. Yeah, maybe he had less of a character, but he had a lot of the skills Keaton did. Like he was he was a really good mover, right? Especially for a huge guy like he was, right? Like for his girth, he's really light on his feet. He could do falls. He could dance. There's a lot. He had incredible aim. He has a lot of funny jokes about like throwing a hatchet behind him without looking and it lands in the center of a target or something.

He was really good at weird sleight of hand things like that. I think he was more just kind of a great performer than he was like the clearly defined type. I mean, you have to ask what would have happened if not for the scandal and if his career had continued on through the 20s. You know, he could have completely redefined who he was. He might have found a new persona. What was the other thing you talk a lot about in your book but he like he hated the fatty name sure i mean you know you one might not want to be called fatty all the time and people called him roscoe to his face or whatever like he was professionally but it was one of those things were like that probably was the handle that

made him a star of course it was sort of a gilded cage and it was in the title often you know a lot of his keystone movies were, you know, Fatty's Tin-Type Tangle and Fatty's Magic Pants was a great title. If we have to sell the Fatty in order for me to be a movie star, then I guess that's where I'm stuck. My persona is not based in me being fat, though. It's not like Fatty Arbuckle shorts are about him, like, getting waylaid by some witches.

No, he didn't really do weight jokes. And I mean, this is actually a thing I try to do in the book is like reinvent him as Roscoe. I really, I feel like great injustice. Well, the greatest injustice that's been done him is that he's vaguely remembered as this kind of pervy rapist and murderer, right? Which not only did he not commit those acts,

but it seems like from everything we know now about this woman who died at a party that he threw in 1921, no one was raped or murdered. No, right. Right. I mean, there was someone who died for all kinds of...

Like weird yellow journalism stuff. Yeah, tabloid. I mean, a kangaroo court situation. I'm not an expert on all of this, but it's pretty evident that there were no crimes committed except for maybe a bunch of drunk people not taking enough care with somebody who was falling down drunk at a party.

But to reduce it greatly, it felt like the core of the thing was there was this growing moral panic around the movies and the shifting, like, sort of, are they lowering the public morals? I feel like this is less true. We need a scapegoat to punish.

Right. The less true of the movies we are going to cover. Because I feel like Buster Keaton movies are fairly chaste and lovely. His character is very chaste. But like, yeah, you watch some of these movies from the twenties and it is kind of crazy how

scandalous they feel like, and how like loose the whole sort of morality of them is not just like what they're showing you, but just how everyone's behaving. And the papers are already complaining about the fact that these kids are having their brain rotted at the Nickelodeon. God forbid they throw a nickel down and watch a thing that's 45 seconds long. Rather than shovel more coal or whatever they're supposed to do.

So then when on top of that, the movies are kind of bawdy. And then you hear that the private lives of these people who are becoming celebrities and being written about are kind of bawdy. They're like, we need to stop this whole fucking chain. I mean, so if a woman ends up dead at a Roscoe or a buckle party, then someone has to pay for this. You hated Babylon, right? Yeah, unfortunately, I went in with such a good heart. Yeah, yeah.

The wildness of that time. I mean, part of I think why I was so disappointed is I just spent five years reading about all that stuff. So I couldn't wait to see how Chazelle treated it. And the fact he played so fast and loose with so many things, which is it's not even about accuracy. It's just all the lost opportunities of how much more interesting

the real thing was. Yeah. I like that movie, but that movie is very disconnected from reality other than in like humongous broad strokes. Very, very broad. Yes. So Buster Keaton, okay, so he's working with Fatty Arbuckle like you say, he's sort of assistant directing as well as being on screen. He's learning the trade.

He was drafted and served in World War I, but he didn't fight. He was an entertainer. Yeah. Right. He got an ear infection, apparently. That wasn't why he... I think he just got in so late

that the armistice had almost been signed. Yes, he says, right, by the time I was going to be at the front, it was over. Right. If you, like, go to war, if you get drafted and then you get something like an ear infection,

do you still get a purple heart? You do not get a purple heart for getting an ear infection. But, you know, you would get like a service medal. Or like a purple ear. You get a purple lollipop. Yeah. I just think if you have an injury that is unrelated to combat, but it happens when you've been drafted.

Do you want to know a purple heart fact that I know that's so crazy? Please. I think I may have learned it on a podcast. When the U.S. was preparing to invade Japan, the island of Japan, as part of the end of World War II, we minted like so many Purple Hearts preparing for what that was going to be. Right. Like this really awful. Like Iwo Jima and stuff.

Post Iwo Jima. We were getting ready for what we assumed before we dropped the bomb, what we assumed would be like a very grueling campaign on the actual mainland. And we still use those Purple Hearts that they minted. We have not depleted the supply. They minted like a quarter million or something. And we have not depleted that supply. So if you get a Purple Heart, it's from 1945. I mean, I guess that's good news in a way. Sure. I mean, none of it's good. Like, you know, but yeah, yeah. It's just crazy. There was some point in the last couple of years where I was spiraling about any number of things.

Maybe it was when the stuff was starting to go down in the Ukraine or any of the numerous times we've been worried about nuclear retaliation from countries. We're being mocked on Twitter. Sure, sure, sure, sure, sure. And you were like, what are you so stressed out about? And I was like, I don't want a world war. I don't want to get drafted. And you were like, Griffin, you're too old to be drafted. Yeah, you're not on their list.

It is such a deep anxiety of mine that I did not clock until like two years ago where you're up like, oh, right. I'm like wasted. I'm like a fucking bird. I don't want. They want all those kids on like tick tock or whatever. Like those kids get drafted. First of all, everything with my body is wrong.

But even still, I was like, I'm young. And you were like, hey, hot news, buddy. You're no longer eligible for American Idol and you wouldn't get drafted in the war. You're not so young anymore. Oh, wow. What's the ceiling? The upside of aging. No longer cannon fodder. American Idol is like 28 or 29. Yeah, that's funny.

Anyway, okay. We should move along. So the first film to star Buster Keaton apparently is The Saphead. Yes. An adaptation of a Winchell Smith play. So this is the one that he just gets cast in. It's a Winchell Smith play that Douglas Fairbanks had done a loose adaptation of, but always wanted to do a more literal, faithful adaptation of the play. And then as the time goes on, they kick him out of it.

They put Buster in in the sort of second role. And Buster just steals the movie so much that it kind of becomes a Buster Keaton film. Is that fair? Yeah, it's a weird film to watch because it's really pretty much a dramatic role, right? A supporting dramatic role even. But he's doing the deadpan. Yeah, because his deadpan is so pronounced and he's making such choices right i mean he's making such strong choices that it just it really stands out he only gets to do a wee bit of physical comedy at the end but but it's great the stock the stock

floor scene to make a a a semi-modern comparison point it's maybe a little similar to something like 48 hours where it's like Eddie Murphy gets slot into this movie. He is a supporting character. Right. And then everyone's like, you know what? Whatever this guy's doing, that's what the movie is. And there's the structure of this movie around him.

He is not the main creative force, but everything starts bending to like, well, this is obviously where the juice is. So while he's making the sap head, Joe Shank, is that Shank? How do you say it? Skank. Sorry. Sorry, Joe. Rck, is that how you say it? Schenck. Sorry. Sorry, Joe. R.I.P.

Buys Charlie Chaplin's lot, calls it the Keaton Studio, hands him a contract for $1,000 a week, plus 25% of the profits. That sounds like a good contract. Yes. They don't hand out contracts like that anymore. He never had any shares in the company, though. It's this funny thing where they're like, here's your own company, and here's your salary, and here's all this.

By the way, the company isn't in Garth. Yeah, he was a horrible businessman throughout his whole life. Never cared. Because he just liked to do it, right? He was like, I get to make movies. What do I care? He's like, that's not the point. Yeah. And he starts to do two reelers, right? Including his first being the high sign. Hello, Dana. Your Twitter handle. Yes. Of course.

Two reelers. Explain what that is because I will admit something before i listen to the book i never knew what the fuck you guys were saying when we said two reeler all the time and i would just be like well you know you got to reel a film right but that doesn't have a whole movie on it just has some of the movie it has 10 minutes right so two reelers 20 minutes yeah it's a 20 minute short yeah but like that was such common parlance that that was how, like, everyone understood the relationship

between reels and time. It wasn't just, like, some industry insider term. The Three Ages poster, the tagline is, like, Three Ages, three stories told in six parts. And I was like, six parts? It's not like they're splitting the chapters, each of the stories. It's like, oh, no, they're literally

just conveying to the audience, this one's an hour long. Right. Even though there aren't those demarcations within the narrative. Right. We will talk more about the shorts later. Yes. On a separate episode, guys. Yes. So, but yeah, I don't know how much more should we cover before we get to three.

I mean, all you need to know is that that was his kind of training ground. And that's what most comedies were at that time. Nobody was really making feature length comedies. Then Chaplin started doing it in 1921. And then, you know, the moment came for Keaton in 23. Right. And 23 is also when Arbuckle gets arrested. No, no, that happened in 21. He was in three trials over the next year or so.

So by 1923, hey, hung jury twice. Yeah. But yeah, by 23, his career is essentially over. I mean, there's a little bit of a Renaissance right before he died, but he,

he's behind the camera now, not in front of his name, direct sort of interesting writer. Also interesting. It's like a biopic. I mean, different biopic, but like that's sort of fascinating.

Final act. Also Buster married, marries Natalie Talmadge, uh, which we mentioned uh and uh right like you say you know uh but it's this odd features it's the new hot stuff it's this odd journey of like he even resented the fact that post sap had they didn't let him jump straight into features where he's like i could have gotten like another six years ahead

of chaplain and lloyd right And basically they threw me back to shorts. And it was not because they didn't believe in him. There was still this question of like, does anyone want to sit? Are feature length comedies a thing? Yeah, well, I mean, shorts were part of the way you watch movies, right? The same way you'd have a cartoon beforehand

or a newsreel or whatever. You watch a short comedy and then a full length drama probably. They were like, that's the ideal format for comedy and then the main feature is a drama or it's something a little more serious. The fact is, thank God he had a few years of making shorts because those are some of the greatest

American comedies ever made. And it also makes him so perfectly... He's worked through almost everything by the time he starts making features. But yes, he's... And Lloyd also kicks off in 21, right? That's Sailor Maid Man. That's like his first.

You're going from vaudeville act to then figuring out how to be a vaguely solo act to then you know. Yeah, I watched his like safety last. Yes, that's the big one. Hanging from a clock. Which people often misattribute to Buster. Yeah, people think that's Buster. I feel like everybody blurs

all the silent comics together. You know, I can't tell you how many times I'd have a conversation saying I'm working on a book on Buster. Yeah, people think that's Buster. I feel like that is... Well, everybody blurs all the silent comics together. You know, I can't tell you how many times I'd have a conversation saying, I'm working on a book on Buster Keaton. Either here, I love when he hangs off the clock,

or I love when he eats his shoe. Right? One being Lloyd, one being Chaplin. So it makes sense if you've never seen a silent movie, but it's sort of in people's mind, it's black and white,

there's a funny guy. It does... He does feel like he should have eaten a shoe at some point. It does kind of feel like something he would do and not move his face. Except poverty guy not a very keaton thing right no it's more that he just would be like yeah i'm eating a shoe what do i care you know like well but it's

yeah i don't know i mean i guess we'll define this but yeah going from from vaudeville to solo act to then shadowing our buckle as both an on-camera performer and filmmaker to sap head is almost this weird thing that comes like surprisingly early where they finally go okay you're a leading man but now go back to shorts now reset yes in shorts and they're yours you're the main voice on them which then leads to to this point where they throw uh the ability to make feature films at him which three ages the first movie we're talking about today, now that we've gotten through five hours of context, it's incredibly important.

Three Ages was... These are also his most slight films. I agree. You know, it's worth it. But Three Ages, by design, was... It's three shorts. Yes. Right, that are being intertwined.

Because part of the insurance policy was, if we're fucking wrong and this fails, we can just split this back up into three shorts and redistribute it back out, which they never did. The movie worked. It was a hit. And it is sort of a parody of Intolerance, right?

Like there's sort of some element of him making fun of Intolerance. I mean, it's a thing he did a lot throughout his career is spoof different genres. And this is a spoof of a few different genres, right? It's a spoof of the Swords and Sandals, Gladiator, Epic, like Ben-Hur, which had been a huge hit a few years before.

Or wait, maybe Ben-Hur wasn't made yet actually no the original bit like the old like silent ben-hur i think i think it was 25 though i think it may have been a little bit later that's the one that was around like uh ben-hur he was actually the real ben-hur yeah he was more of a sort of like you know i think that came zero bc yeah yeah right exactly but because like the 25 one right is where like so many people got stopped by horses making that movie Sorry, you said stomped by horses. Yeah, cuz like they have the chariot stuff and like, you know Safety was you know, not paramount concern back then Babylon is actually smart on that. It was more of a universal concern going Yes Babylon right is very is very smart on the it wasn't paramount it was more of a universal concern going um yes babylon right is very uh is very smart on the uh right yeah um but no he's spoofing yes dw griffith

most obviously in intolerance right with the trans historical epic thing but also all different genres of movie i actually love the caveman stuff even though it has some of the most the stupidest gags i'm such a sucker for caveman jokes of any kind. I think also just because it's so funny to see him in that outfit and I don't know.

Yes, the caveman is sort of the funniest. He's like fucking 40 years ahead of the Flintstones in just the very basic, like, what is,

right, what is the, the ancient prehistory version of our modern, like, creature comforts and conveniences, right? The stuff like the sundial watch, you know,

is like him using the Roman helmet as like a lock, a boot. For the wheel, right? On the wheel. Like that stuff is like so ahead of its time and is still the kind of comedy we traffic in today that does not feel old at all. It is fascinating how much these two movies are like in conversation with their time in this very modern way where he's like playing off of the tropes that people know from other popular culture at the time and subverting.

Apparently the the safety lock thing that was like a brand new invention at the time and subverting apparently the um the safety lock thing that was like a brand new invention at that time like there was like a spike that looked like a roman helmet that was like whatever it was the club of its time doing a fucking nft gag yeah exactly he was like everyone would get that like that's you know this is the new thing to stop someone from stealing your car this is probably pretty easy to steal a car back then i mean he's always into old technology right when we get to our hospitality we'll talk about that old train but i mean even though he himself was on the cutting edge of technology right and just always interested in machines a great tinkerer with machines we are he loved looking back at the history of technology so it makes sense that to him ancient

rome would be this source of you know let's figure out what we can do with a chariot how many gags can we get out of a chariot? Well, Buster, I mean, a, you know, a pin for the entire miniseries, loves trains almost as much as Miyazaki loves planes. Like anytime he can work a train into the thing. And I think part of it is the fact that like with the train, so much of the mechanism is visible on the outside, you know, that you have such an understanding of how it's working in real time in an inherently visual medium. But yes, there is that thing where like, there's this part of

the Buster character, especially in Three Ages, but it persists in a lot of his movies, where it's like, he's the one modern person in an ancient time, right? He sort of has this modern understanding of like, why wouldn't you just do this? You know, there's this very casual attitude to him just sort of, Ben and I, once again, we're talking after Sherlock Jr. And we were trying to like break down the comedic persona because it's so odd that he is able to, within the same movie, scene by scene,

maybe even sometimes moment by moment, swing between being high status and low status, right? That narratively, he is almost always under the boot, right? Right. Most Buster movies end up at their center being about a romantic rivalry, you know, a fair maiden who is betrothed or entangled with some burly asshole guy.

Wallace Beery type. Yeah, perfect example is in the three different time periods, the modern time period there's this gag early on where the one suitor that's not Buster, he hands his bank statement and it says first national

bank and Buster says last national bank. Exactly. Like the joke is about this guy is so low status. He's not good for the daughter. He's a Shlemiel who can in an instant like with it with a gesture he can transform into this kind of like elegant dandy as he does a couple times in the modern segment adapt so quickly who is somehow smarter than everyone else without feeling like he's pulling one over on anyone else you know and i think that's that thing that buster talked about where it's like uh there's a quote in here,

but he didn't want to have to think about making his character sympathetic to the audience, right? He thought that was sort of like a dangerous path to worry too much about likability. But also, this was just so bone deep in him

after, you know, at this point, he's been performing for 15 plus years. He just has such an innate sense of when the audience is on his side and when he isn't without having to intellectualize it. And he puts the character in situations

where you're innately going to want to root for him because he's the more honest person, right? He's the less aggressive person. It's a thing that's fascinating about Three Ages. It's kind of, I think its biggest failing is this character is a little too aggressive in all three timelines. The thing where he passes the note where he's like, lose the chump

I'm pretending to be sleeping behind you or whatever, like, you're like, it's not gonna work. I mean, it's funny that it doesn't work. Wait, but it's Wallace Bearing who hands him that note. He's not the one who hands him the note. Right, it's Wallace Bearing who hands him the note. But there are other bits in this where you're like, he's a little too competitive.

Whereas I feel like... Like where they're doing the caveman competition. Yeah, I mean, obviously this movie ends up having three centerpiece competitions. Yes. Literally. But I also feel like... I just like the hitting yourself on the head.

The romantic rivalry thing, which once again, then, you know, it's Popeye and Bluto. It's all of these fucking narratives. Wallace Beers is very Bluto. Yes. Very, once again, then, you know, it's Popeye and Bluto. It's all of these fucking narratives. Well, it's very Bluto. Yes. Very, yeah. I feel like in later movies, it's so much more,

he just loves this woman and wants her attention. It's less about, I gotta get over on this guy. And in Three Ages, he's trying to defeat three guys, you know? He's viewing it as a competition more than just like, I'm here and I wish she could pay attention to me yeah the truest stories you're right the stories that are truest to his essence as a performer i think are not when it's popeye and bluto competing for a girl though that happens a lot in the early phases it's when he's either against the elements like steamboat bill jr right

he's against uh something something something sort of faded you know or the train theft in the general it's when there's a big problem to solve and he's this little guy trying to solve it. But even when you have the Wallace Beery type who ends up, you know, getting diminished as a character as the films go on, because, yes, the larger circumstances of the world around him are more of an obstacle than this guy. This guy is maybe just the final barrier. I think part of his charm and part of what makes him connect with audiences is that post three ages, he never knows

that there's a competition going on, right? One of the most unsavory aspects of the guy who is his romantic rival is that that guy is viewing this like a fight, that he has to beat Buster.

Right. And you look at our hospitality and he cracks this thing of like, the best thing could be buster never knowing that everyone's trying to kill him he's he's sort of blissfully unaware he's appealing to everyone's best nature and going like that's dangerous to be firing pistols off in the air like that you know he's almost looking out for everyone also he deals with a waterfall another in that movie we'll talk about her but like another sort of immovable object of nature. Yeah. Three Ages, which is intolerance.

D.W. Griffith's epic that was sort of semi his response to. Better known as I'm not mad or I'm not owned. It's the ultimate I'm not owned movie. Birth of the Nation is like the biggest fucking hit. And everyone immediately calls out that it's racist. Because it's very racist yes it's 1915 racist that's the thing about i think i mean i don't know how you feel about birth of a nation but it's undeniably not pro let's just say i mean obviously it you know is a pioneering piece

of visual storytelling i guess in some ways not really that reputation is overstated right this is my only but its influence is important and that's why i think it still needs to be seen because it was a hit right right but it sort of became this weird kind of like start of film 101 that maybe it didn't deserve to oh yeah no it gets kind of retconned into doing inventing all kinds of you need to show in every fucking film school class in your syllabus um a huge hit and a very controversial film. This was the point I wanted to make. It's just that I think

people now, when they try to approach Birth of a Nation as a historical document, they go, I can't believe this horribly racist movie was popular and beloved

in its day. And you're like, it was controversial in its day. It was a huge hit and it had big fans, but even at the time, it got the same

fucking discourse cycle that any controversial movie Oh yeah, it was protested. Absolutely absolutely people were like up in arms about it and then yes dw griffith does this i'm not mad i'm so not mad i'm gonna make an epic about how bad intolerance is set in three different time periods four four time periods yeah you're right yeah but it's the same basic idea but three ages is him riffing on that he's doing a parody of a movie that has been huge in the popular consciousness that also gives him this easy escape route if it doesn't work to just turn it into theme two reelers have you seen intolerance of course i'm sure you've seen it i have not seen intolerance is such a tough sit so boring but the thing that's really worth it for is the frame story i mean speaking of father time again right it's ke worth it for is the frame story. I mean, speaking of father time again, right? It's Keaton's version of the frame story.

The endlessly rocking cradle of time. There's this crazy sort of, yeah. I mean, just the vision of women and intolerance is utterly nuts. You're either sort of like a snake dancing vamp, you know, who's going to bring down the entire Babylonian empire or you're a pure Lillian Gish virgin rocking a cradle for all eternity. I remember Lillian Gish, yes. So Buster's big take on three ages is obviously,

I'm going to take the structure from intolerance, which everyone will get what I'm riffing on. And then my sort of point, the theme that is staying the same throughout the ages rather than being intolerant from one man to another is romantic courtship, right? That basically he's saying that the social mores, the behaviors of men and women in painting a very broad brush remain the same regardless of the times around us.

Is one of the things this movie has incredible gags in it, but you do feel that insurance policy quality of if this doesn't work, we'll split into three shorts. Yeah, it doesn't really hang together structurally. It doesn't. Some of them split it into three shorts. Yeah, it doesn't really hang together structurally. It doesn't. Some of them are way too short. Yeah. They're not like really commenting on each other or weaving out in interesting ways.

You're just kind of seeing the same narrative three times, but with different clothing. And I love the idea so much when it starts. I'm just like, this is going to be so cool. And then you realize, right, like, no, it's right. Just this again now now but he's wearing a straw but that's why i mean as we'll see in our hospitality it's it's it's so exciting to see the moment that he actually figures out wait here's how i tell you know a through composed story about

real characters right and it's so beautiful when he hits that movie the second movie is insane i mean i talk in the book a bit about the the cinema of attractions right like this idea that in the early days of cinema really early early, like turn of the century, that movies were about just seeing stuff, seeing stuff that was fun and interesting. Like I've never seen an elephant. Right. Yeah, exactly. And and a lot of early cinema, but certainly Three Ages still owes a kind of debt to that, because even though it has this, you know, structure of the three different time frames, it really the best moments are where it's sort of sketch comedy. You know, like the moment that made me laugh out loud again

rewatching it this morning and I've seen this movie, you know, dozens of times is when he gets served the crab in the restaurant in the modern story and he's just like terrified of the crab on his plate and jumps into the waiter's arms.

It's such good physical comedy. It's so silly. It has nothing to do with the story. You know, those are the moments you watch Three Ages for. Yes, I like the bits that jump out to me that I just think are like, well, this is where he's totally nailing

what his persona is as a leading man in a feature-length film. The guilelessness that makes him still lovable, you know, is even when he's doing something absurd, the moment where he's at the dinner

and the woman starts applying her makeup and he just looks over at her and then goes like, huh, reaches under the table, pulls out a kit. You don't quite understand what's happening. And then he starts wet shaving. Right.

And it's just this logical leap that he is able to sell so well in his body language for how famous he is in his face, largely being unchanging, right? He is so good at somehow playing thinking on screen without pantomiming it in any way where you can see the thought of, oh, if she's doing that, I should do this. You don't quite know what he's doing. And then the

moment it comes together, it is so incredibly funny that he's now lathering up. Well, it's this like contamination logic that he often has in the arbuckle movies too where somebody some other character is doing some gesture that makes sense and he starts imitating it even though it doesn't make sense another great moment and this is again just how great his gestural comedy was is when the girl who we need to talk about margaret leahy who plays that woman because she's uh one performance she's a big reason the movie does not work in many places yes but uh but she's doing her little walkie a big reason the movie does not work in many places But she's doing her little walkie fingers

On the couch as she flirts with Wallace Beery And then he just starts doing it as well But then he gets so caught up in his own little cute walkie fingers That he's just doing it to do it There's this part of Buster that's great Which is like oh I get it And he doesn't but he does it so confidently And he can't be corrected

But like you say There's refining of the persona happening here uh margaret lahey just to mention uh had won a beauty contest correct um and uh one of the prizes in the contest was to be in a movie it was to be in a movie called within the law yes opposite norma talge. And after three days on set, Frank Lloyd said that she couldn't act. She was basically shunted off onto Keaton. Like, nobody cared who the leading ladies were

in his comedies. Joe Skink, I think, even said, it doesn't matter, you know, all she has to do is stand there and look pretty. We essentially have a contractual obligation to put her in a movie, put her in a movie where what she's doing matters even less.

And you see how much it does matter when you see, for example, the shaving scene. That's not Margaret Leahy, right? That's Virginia Fox, who was a leading lady in a lot of later Keaton movies, in some shorts before that, I think.

I don't know if she was in any features, but she was in a bunch of shorts with him. And she's funny. Like she, right? She has some sense of like gestural comedy. She knows why the joke is meant to work. And it makes a huge difference, even though it is true that in most of his films,

the exception is Sybil Seeley, who's a wonderful leading lady who actually got her own stuff to do. But most of the time, his leading ladies sort of are just the pretty prize you win at the end. But it still matters in silent movies that you can act.

He was sort of reductive about, like, it doesn't matter as long as they're pretty. You know, he didn't view it as a priority in his films but it is a differentiating factor between the ones that are good silent film acting just seems like a very specific skill not that regular act film acting isn't but like yeah like that seems like something you could really do disastrous yeah i mean there were a lot of beauty contest castings and claire bow actually came from that background but yeah margaret leahy was a dud. And I think that's part of what makes a lot of this movie feel less alive than it could.

Like acting is reacting, right? You need someone who has that. I think a lot of times when you put people in movies who do not come from an acting background, right? Who are celebrities in some other field. That's the thing you notice is they're putting way too much spin on the ball when it's their dialogue, when it's their close-up, when it's their

moment where they're leading the scene. And then when someone else is doing something, they kind of go blank. There's the term camera napping that I saw in JJ's research was the thing they kept on yelling at Leigh about while they were filming of like... Yeah, so that she'd be caught napping. Right. But this would be like

she'd be doing what she was supposed to do, what they'd rehearse, and then Buster would have an idea and try something else out. And if she didn't follow, that was being, that was napping. But I think it's also that thing of like, what do I need to do in this scene?

Right. And you're so intensely focused on what you need to do next that you're not paying attention to what's going on around you. And this is, I think, important for the way Keaton worked, you know, is that he really did consider

everyone a collaborator. He had a group, a team, you Keaton worked, you know, is that he really did consider everyone a collaborator. He had a group, a team, you know, of, you know, his cameraman, his production designer, people that he had worked with for years. And he wanted everybody, even the extras, to be sort of part of the collaborative process. You know, he liked to get things on the first take. He liked it to feel fresh and for it to be kind of, you know, alive on camera and on set. He wanted like a family around him,

which makes sense with what he came from. But he had no like sort of... A trustworthy ensemble, yeah. He didn't have the same kind of like persnickety, obsessive auteur personality that even like Lloyd and Chaplin had at the time. There's something so fascinating about the way that I think Keaton really thought of himself as like a craftsperson

and not some hoity-toity artist, right? Yeah. He didn't have that pretension about him, even though he cared a lot about getting things right. But there's the gag in Three Ages in the modern segment where he tries to make the leap from building to building. Yes, I

wanted to make sure we talked about that because it's one of the great stunts in his entire career. So even though the movie is weak, it's worth it for that moment. Yeah, the fall, I don't know, it seems like it should be dead. You know the story behind it, right? Do you know this, David? No, I mean, it may be in the research, but no, I don't know. Assume I know nothing.

Okay. I know the guy had a stone face and there's trains in his movies and I've seen like four of them. You should read a book, man. No, I know. Well, this is the thing, I'm going to read everything once we've done this series i wanted to watch the movie do you want to tell the story yeah i mean you can jump in but i mean essentially that that gag the roof to roof jump or that stunt rather yeah which is an elaborate multi-part stunt right he jumps from roof to roof doesn't make it hits three awnings on the way down john wick quotes that later on by the way i can't remember which

one of them on that was very that chas to helsky was so fun to talk to about keaton yeah so then and then he grabs the the drain pipe right the drain pipe then kind of flops down lever style against the building pitches him through a window he then happens to land in a firehouse slides through the firehouse dorm goes down the hole in the pole right that you have to have in the old-fashioned firehouse and then lands on the truck just as it's pulling out so it's this whole great um rube Goldberg with him as the projectile kind of gag. Now, it was all an accident. Yep. In the script, David, he's supposed to make it lands the job, which should also be impressive

because it's a pretty big job. But he like actually fucks up and falls and is out of commission for like two or three days. Right. Yeah. He hits a net, but he gets injured enough that he takes a few days off and that's when his gag writers say hey i think we can use this piece of footage and turn it into this extended gag so when he's basically recovering from the fall they go like well the footage is so fucking good we just watched this

the fall is so funny it would be stupid not to rewrite the next five minutes of the movie around the fallout from the fall and it's like that sort of looseness you know and just like when you get something that works on camera you go with it i you know i there's the similar gag in uh mission possible fallout yeah when tom cruise similarly injures himself for real trying to make basically the exact same leap with very similar framing and you hear interviews with macquarie we talk all the time about when he does these three hour long empire interviews whenever a new one comes out the way those movies are made are kind of the only films that are made the way buster used to make his movies where it's like we have locations

right we have cast we have stunt professionals we have people who know what they're doing and how did they remind me how did they extend that accident and make it look We have cast. We have stunt professionals. We have people who know what they're doing. But like things can be improvised. But remind me, how did they extend that accident and make it look turned into a longer stunt? I mean, he basically, because he, rather than making the jump, he like goes into the wall and he grabs it, but he doesn't land on it. And then they play the rest of the thing with him sort of limping. It's a smaller adjustment. But when they talk about those movies, they like don't have a traditional script

in place per se. I didn't know that. Very ketonian. To fulfill. And they always like the first four Mission Impossibles, they would try to write a proper script and it wouldn't work

and they'd be rewriting stuff on the fly. And basically when Macquarie comes on, he was like, we have to stop trying to control this in advance. And now they go like, find me some good locations. Tom, what are stunts you've always wanted to do? Let's start planning these. And then in real time, we're going to watch footage and go, what we could use here as a scene connecting these two characters in between. Oh, this thing

turned out well, so let's write around this now. And those movies are very organically developed around great places, great set pieces, great sort of larger concepts that then they find the narrative to weave in between. Interesting. Well, you know, Stahelski does exactly that with the John Wick movies. And when I was interviewing him about the Keaton influence on his work, he said this sentence that was almost verbatim the way that Keaton talked about scripting his movies in advance, which was we get the beginning and the end and then the middle will work itself out, you know, and he didn't even realize that he was quoting the Keaton practice. And Keanu is so bustery in those movies. And just in general, like he is a great stone face. Yes. No. I think he's a big fan.

Clearly. And he actually, I don't know if he's read it, but he is in possession of my book because I made sure it got to him when it came out because I just, yeah, he's one of the, I feel like he's one of his, part of the legacy in the modern age, along with Jackie Chan. Yeah, I saw so many people say about the fourth movie, like, oh, you can really feel like Keanu's getting up there in age. It's hard for him to walk. And I'm like, I think that is a conscious decision because the first movie-

The character is tired. Like, yes, yes, exactly. It's like, it's part of this thing of like, this very subtle, innate, how do you make sure the audience is still on this guy's side kind of thing that Buster Keaton had in his bones as well. Of like, the first movie, you set up the paradigm of dead wife,

dog gets killed, car gets stolen, we're going to root for this guy no matter what, right? Three movies later, we've watched him kill a billion people. We're pretty far away from both of the traumatic deaths. At some point, does this guy start feeling unlikable?

Does he start feeling too high status? And it's like, no, you have to adjust in real time. The more tired he seems, the more broken he is, the more honest he is in his emotions, the more we're still going to root for him. Other gags I like in three ages yeah uh the

dinosaur the dinosaur is incredible thank you for reminding me here's here's a take i want to hear if you agree with this or not dana uh and this was a thing that crystallized in the way you talked about uh in your book uh the actualities how much movies at the time were about seeing things just literally if you put a thing on screen that people hadn't seen before it would blow their fucking minds and so you basically have like two languages developing in cinema in the early days which is sort of the lumiere let's just show you life as it is let's show you different places let's show you different things let's give you a slice of reality? This sort of jockey drama style being developed.

And then you have Melies, who is like a magician, who is using illusions and tricks to show you things that could never exist, that could only exist within this specific medium in this kind of way. And I think Chaplin and Lloyd are much more into the like, creating a fantastical world around themselves where things like the

clock and Chaplin going through the gears, you know, or the roller skating sequence and city lights in the mall are based on. I know this isn't real. I know this is a setup device, but part of what you're enjoying is this sort of clockwork, the craft of building this artificial reality. Whereas I think so much of Buster's language is shooting his movies like they are actualities, that they have a very unfussy style so that you're watching something that feels very similar to the actualities, the documentaries you'd be seeing at that time. Right. If only if only to prove it's his body really doing the stunts. And then something unbelievable happens in the middle of it three ages kind of breaks that a little bit because it

goes so far into the two earlier time yeah well that's why the dinosaur although it's fun to see because it's early animation it's very un very unkeaton-esque yeah right it's like it's a special effect i love those 30 seconds and then it kind of fucks up the rest of the movie i mean mean, even a moment, I think this happens when he's used as a kind of catapult, right? When he knocks out Wallace Beery because he's being catapulted somehow in the caveman section. You know, clearly something is that trajectory is not the natural trajectory of his body. And that's very Unkeaton-esque because he really did like to keep the camera far enough back and, you know, the special effects to a minimum so that you are aware, like, somebody is really doing that and it's really him that's doing it. Right. And the trickery he tries to employ, he makes invisible, you know, or if there is a special effect gag in a movie that was more apparent, it's something like Sherlock Jr. or the double exposures in Cameraman where that's part of the narrative is something weird is going on with the camera

you know we're using the language that audiences know rather than trying to pull one over on them this is also it's a reference to gertie the dinosaur yes a cartoon from 1914 right it basically credits the first major piece of screened animation right it has like is it stop motion it was hand-drawn it It's hand-drawn. It's like very simple. Oh yeah, I've seen that. You created Little Nemo and Slumberland. But part of the thing was... Which of course was then

turned into the biggest movie of 2022, Slumberland. Yeah. A movie that absolutely exists. That exists so much it hurts. I think part of this routine was Winsor McKay would go around and project this and interact with Gertie in real time on stage. That was sort of the trick of

like, oh my God, he's done this piece of animation that in and of itself is impressive, but it's also timed out with a routine where he can have some back and forth. That's a whole cinema attractions thing too, right? Narrated movies, which is something great that only existed for whatever, 20 years at the beginning of the medium.

So they write this gag where Wallace Beery is on an elephant and they go, how do they one up an elephant? And he's like a dinosaur. And his gag writers are like, Buster, what the fuck are you talking about? We can't have you ride a dinosaur. And he goes like, Buster, you're crazy. Yeah. And then he said, what the fuck are you talking about? No, but he was like, I remember seeing Gertie when I was a kid.

We can just do that kind of thing a thing that is incredibly difficult to do and even more difficult to do in stop motion which is a different medium right um they took him 52 takes apparently right because it has to sync up so perfectly um i think he did love that kind of challenge even though it's not very typical of his filmmaking style and if we talk about the playhouse his short the playhouse you'll see him using, you know, I don't know what you'd call it, but masking, you know, being able to redouble his own image in a way that was way more sophisticated than anyone was doing at the time.

He's like, I think of him as like an engineer on top of everything else. Right. But that's the difference. From this point out, it's like, I want to make a watch. I want this to be unfussy. I want the mechanics to be hidden behind it. Right. I want part of the thing for the audience to say to behind it. Right. It won't be showy.

For the audience to say to themselves, there's no way that's a special effect. How is that possible? We should move on from three ages to our hospitality.

Unless there's anything else in three ages we want to discuss. I really like Chariot. Yeah. So it's, right, same narrative three times. You like this gag very much. I like this gag very much.

Right. I think the Roman narrative may be, well, the Cayman has good gags as well. The modern one is the one that feels a little. The modern one feels kind of flat. But it has some of the best jokes in it. It does have funny jokes. I think. I mean, it's got that roof jump that we talked about.

Yeah, the jump is cool. And I personally, I think the scene in the cafe has a lot of great moments. I love the crab. I love when he gets drunk. Just how subtly he plays the drunk. Pretty good. Right. The way you see how he believes in himself the minute he starts getting drunk.

Right. That funny thing. I mean, you said in the beginning of that, that narrative where he's trying to understand how flirtation works by watching Wallace Beery and copying him incorrectly or getting too caught up in things. The chariot race, they're using the actual LA Coliseum, which has just been built for the Olympics,

which gives you so much fucking production value. Like, you cannot believe how huge this thing looks and decked out with real extras. But there's been a major snowfall the day before, so he has the idea to turn his chariot into a sled. Right. So he has, like, a dog slediot into a sled right so he has like a a dog sled so it really did snow in la that that no no no that's a written gag i think i i believe

yeah that oh i thought you said he was using actual so i'm saying the character within within the film right uh the the gag i love is the spare dog in the back of the chariot, which feels like another modern problem for historical problem. How does he sort of have the foresight? And then there's also this sort of the holy shit aspect there where you're like, there's no big special effect there. But part of the laugh is, holy shit. So this whole take I've been watching, there's just been a dog hanging out there in the back. You know, in real life, he's just had a dog in that box. Yeah, he loved to work with animals.

And actually, the other stunt that really always wows me in the Roman section is that crazy moment when he rides a horse into sort of an archway. And then he shimmies up a pole that he's holding on the horse. It's all done in one take. Yeah. And goes into some sort of, you know, upper door and that structure. I mean, that's just such a dangerous stunt. Yes.

And our hospitality has the incredible dog routine. But then the lion, I think the lion stuff is really funny, but it's very similar to the dinosaur shit where it kind of kills reality

where you're like, here's a guy in a lion costume giving a performance. It's a pretty good costume. I have to say, it's the Frank Oz of the 20s. That guy animates that lion beautifully. But this is the thing.

I'm like, same way I feel about the dinosaur. I love this while I'm watching it. The craft of it, I think, is kind of incredible. He starts like petting the, he's like, I'm going to get a thorn out of the lion's paw, like, you know, in the story or whatever. Right, I'm going to do his nails and that way he won't attack me, right? And then you see the lion sort of preening and looking out, checking out his own whatever. But

all of that's funny when I'm watching it. The moment it ends, you are sort of like, so this is now just anything can happen. Right. You're so untethered from reality. Yeah, the whole movie is a grab bag, basically. Right. Versus watching him deal with a real dog where you're more impressed by every single thing that's happening because

you can't believe he got it out of him right uh and then it ends with the same sort of epilogue three times where you know he beats wall wallace beery in competition he ends up with the woman and uh they have a bunch of kids second narrative they have a bunch of kids third narrative they have a dog i don't really get what the commentary there is. It might just be funny. Were people fucking less in those days? Like, I don't know what the... Early 20s?

No, I think... I mean, families were getting smaller and people were urbanizing. To the extent there's any kind of social satire in the movie, it's sort of that moment. on the way down, you don't have to have

eight kids anymore. I don't know. I don't know. Now, our hospitality, immediately he's like, I'm going to tell a fucking story. I'm going to also i mean three ages was also successful right like so it's sort of it merits him as like you are now a feature director you do not need to worry about this anymore but basically the reviews of it were like a narrative doesn't really make any sense

it's not that grossing it succeeds as 60 minutes of funny shit happening film critics back then and obviously they existed because d.w. brody obviously but like who are the like did you read criticism oh yeah there's two there's actually two chapters on the development of film criticism because once again it was really in tandem with his life you know i mean basically film criticism at the beginning was just sort of noting that there was this weird thing called film and you could go see it at such and such right theater right i mean the cinema of attractions was also there in the coverage right like what's so funny about early film criticism is half of the criticism is like they're still not convinced on these movies right oh yeah and it goes so late reviewing the film they watch and happening like i still

think this might die out in two years right yeah there's a guy writing on Chaplin who I quote in the book in 1915, I think, during the year of Chaplin-itis, right, that he becomes this huge global phenomenon of fame. And this guy is saying, not only have I never seen a Chaplin movie, I've never seen any movie, a fact of which I remain proud, you know, because he's a theater snob. I give three ages a B plus, movies a B minus. I remain unconvinced. three ages of B plus, movies of B minus. I remain unconvinced. But right around 1920, right, when Keaton starts making his own independent movies,

there's a whole chapter in the book on this critic Robert Sherwood, who I consider one of the first real voicey film critics. That is a name I know. I've heard that name. And he loved Keaton and was sort of implicated with his life, like tried to write a failed screenplay for him that never got off the ground.

But yeah, film criticism was just starting to take the form that we know it in now. And he's an Algonquin round table guy eventually. Yep, he's one of those wits. Our Hospitality, originally titled Headin' South, was a terrible title. Horrendous. Although Our Hospitality

is also a terrible title. They say it once in the movie. Sure, I don't care. This is our kind of hospitality. But I mean, I guess it's sort of a joke at least, right? like our hospitality is we're gonna try and kill you right yeah right is that the gag the title is also just hospitality at one point which i think it was hospitality a little better yeah yes i would take that uh and obviously it's drafting off of the hatfield mccoy feud right that's which here's a funny thing to think about go ahead it just this thing that was sort of like loom large in culture the east coast west coast rap war of its time was uh southern

families fighting for generations right like these were the original gang wars were just families who were like there was some slight 85 years ago that hasn't even really been explained to me but now because of it our families will constantly be fighting each other. It is. I don't know. I have you ever delved into the Hatfield McCoy? Did you did you do it at all for the you don't have to deal with that? I may have read something about it.

For me, it's just it's a lyric from Lukenbach, Texas. That's that's you know, and that's what it will remain. Whenever I try to read about it being like, no, come on, this is an interesting part of folklore. And you just start reading. You're like, no, come on, this is an interesting part of folklore. And you just start reading. You're like, this is so boring. Inscrutable. Inscrutable.

Who cares? But basically, like, the Hatfields and McCoys. There's two families in the South. They didn't like each other. They kept killing each other. Basically get settled in the 1890s, right? So it's getting settled around the time that he's born as well. It's another thing that he's just born into of this is now legend.

around the time that he's born as well. It's another thing that he's just born into of this is now legend. An insane thing to think about. He's making this film in 1921? 22 he films it? Came out in 23, right? So he's probably filming in 22 or 23. The

Hatfields and McCoy's feud is finally sort of passed to the wind in 1892. At the time he's making this movie, it's like as recent history as air is. Sure. For us now.

Right. It's his parents' lifetime. Right. You know? That makes sense. Yeah. A, it's a thing that's been dramatized both like literally and sort of like more representationally,

this type of thing going on culturally. He's picking a thing that has already been and will continue to be the meat of narrative dramatic films and going like, I'll just slot the comedy into this, which is I think what he finally cracks on this film of, oh, give myself the bones

of like a serious dramatic film. Give myself the proper arc and then put the gags in rather than trying to assemble this as a series of sketches. Yeah. And the beginning really speaks to that because it's just so odd that you don't see the adult Buster Keaton until almost nine minutes into the movie. Right. And there's this dramatic play totally straight prologue that could be D.W. Griffith melodrama. But that's like, you know, half of studio big, you know, high concept studio comedies are this kind of we all know this what if you

place the wrong person in the center right so the joke even just seeing him appear for the first time is a joke which is the thing i think he's kind of creating here i mean obviously you know people have done it in other mediums well look it's 1923 you're creating everything exactly like you know right everything could be pioneering back then. But, like, this is the actual comedy. This is the genre riff comedy. You know, this is the sort of fish out of water, you know, placing in. But in this sort of postmodern way where it's like this is someone more like the audience watching the movie placed into a movie. Which means he knows enough about his persona at that point that he realizes, oh, just my appearance will be a joke. Exactly. he knows enough about his persona at that point that he realizes oh just my appearance will be a joke exactly i will say i was surprised that the first 20 minutes of this movie are very light on

humor yeah like on like what i expect from buster keaton i guess yes right like you don't really start getting gags until the train which doesn't really start until 20 minutes in and is like a 20 minute segment yes and then the train is funny but it's also just sort of interesting like it's just sort of visually exciting. Well, there I feel like you have to talk about his interest in period stuff, you know, because it's looking forward to the general also, which will be a much more pristine period piece. I mean, there he's really trying to reconstruct Matthew Brady photographs from the Civil War and he's paying attention to historical accuracy and all that. Here, he really is just playing with the past, you know know and i think that goes to his obsession with old technology i was talking about right like why does he set it in the 1830s in part because it makes sense to have the

hatfield mccoy style viewed but also just because he wants to show this crazy 1830s train yeah you know and uh and and the great bike you know that early predecessor of the bike which is i think kind of anachronistic. Like, it actually would have been a little before that. But he just wanted to go back and look at these funny old machines and try to sort of recreate them and imagine their daily use. I think trains should be like that. Yes. You know, they can be all terrain.

It should just be a series of carriages. But, like, they can be on just the ground. Oh, sure. And then maybe they'll join some rails later or whatever. You know, like, they can do it all. And there's an old guy on the back they'll join some rails later. You know, like they can do it all. And there's an old guy on the back with a trumpet. Yeah, who's just like feeding coal into it. Doing a bad job. Right.

And he literally went back in transportation history and looked for the funniest train. You know, it's not really quite true to the period. It's got a lot of character. It's an English train. It wasn't even in America. But he just wanted to find this goofiest looking vehicle he could. It is incredibly funny. I mean, David, you always joke or perhaps say more seriously than anything else you ever say that if you were an elected official, your platform.

Right. You're just going to fix trains. Cover the country. Cover the whole fucking country with trains. Make everything run with trains. I mean, I'd probably get booted out of office almost immediately because I would start like seizing land. I'm sure.

Like you can't run a train through here. But of your pitch the railroad baron of the 21st century like what's his name in the gilded age being like no my railroads andrew carnegie yes and have some big beard you know part of your pitch for modern train reform is that there should always be a man with a van dyke a goatee sitting on the back of the caboose on the roof of the caboose with a large horn falling asleep and failing to alert people there needs to be a man with a Van Dyke goatee sitting on the back of the caboose, on the roof of the caboose with a large horn, falling asleep and failing to alert people. There needs to be a political cartoon of you sitting on top of the Capitol

holding a bag with dollar signs. Old man Sims with his trains. My daughter, I have this, like, bag filled. I was obsessed with Thomas the Tank Engine as a child, unsurprisingly. Yes. And I had this bag filled with Thomas trains Which were like made of metal back then

I imagine they are not now You didn't even have Because I feel like I had the Brio ones Which were wood Right, those are wood No, no, these are like metal trains Wow, those are deadly weapons They are, you can really

Like especially the big boys Yeah You whip that at daddy's head Right, my daughter was playing with them yesterday She's finally like seemed you know interested by them Also by the way what did I get your daughter for her birthday What did I get your daughter as a present for her birthday Why don't you just go ahead and brag about the

Duplo train set from Toy Story Which she loves Check check check It's got Toy Story characters Lego Toy Story trains That's called a fucking hat trick. Perfect gift. But those trains, like you said, those trains look like, often, look like this thing.

Yes. This thing. It looks like a little child's train set. Yes. Where you're like, well, the car wouldn't actually look like that. Just, like, hitched together to the other thing. And the fantastic joke that it goes at the same pace as the dog. Yes.

They are very sweet together um though on the train like the romance is quite sweet he's basically doing like 30 minutes of setting up just this movie having a solid dramatic emotional foundation before he starts doing buster gags right because like as we said first 10 minutes is just world building here's the feud here's the rivalry which the very clever with the very clever conceit of this woman takes her son out of it grows cross-country tries to start him anew without knowing yeah there's the whole prologue with the rainy night and all this is key to the buster persona that he's finally nailing here and features of this guy can't know he's stuck in the middle of

a fight right sure that has to be the thing that makes him so likable is that he's stuck in the middle of a fight, right? Sure. That has to be the thing that makes him so likable is that he's not trying to fuck with anybody. He's just trying to keep on living his life. So you have 10 minutes of that. Then 10 minutes where like, from the moment they finally cut to the grownup son and you see it's Buster and he looks like Buster, it does immediately feel funny.

You have to imagine audiences were just laughing at seeing him in this environment, even though it's still mostly just kind of like laying down tracks. In New York City. Yes. But it's like portrayed as like a dust bowl. Which is funny. That's a D.W. Griffith joke actually.

The moment when the inner title says here's Times Square or whatever it was in 1830 and then it says based on an old print. That's something D.W. Griffith used to do to sort of prove his bona fides or something his subtitles would say oh yes this is based on engraving by so and so i didn't get that joke okay that makes sense to me now is buster reading is not macho i assume yes like was that part of his sort of persona here early on he's sort of slight

yeah like is it part of the joke it's like like, wait, this guy's going to wander into it? Yeah. I mean, that was always part of his thing. Right. And he's in that way is a predecessor, I think, of the kind of Jewish Shlemiel in a way. You know, there's an early Woody Allen or a Dustin Hoffman kind of element to how he fits into the masculine world. Right. Yes. Combined with this this sort of childlike innocence, you know? The world is moving too fast around him. Yes, right. He's kind of guileless, I guess. Right. But yeah, you like, second 10 minutes of the movie,

basically arranging the meet-cute of the two of them ending up, unbeknownst to them, rivals from these two warring families in the same caboose train car. And then you have like 10 minutes that is cutting in between train gags that really don't involve Buster that directly. They're much more him riffing on what could be funny to watch a train do, how a train could move.

But it's not like they're Buster stunts. Yeah, I know. Again, I feel like it's almost a mental sketch of the general, right? Because he's trying to figure out how can a train be a character, which this train is. But in the general, it's the main character, the character, which this train is, but in the general,

it's the main character, the title character. The train is a character in this sequence, but Buster is fairly passive within it, and then you're just cutting into the carriage where you're watching me cute stuff between the two of them. You're seeing their charming relationship develop.

It's cute when they're asleep on each other's shoulders. Vaguely disconnect this. Yeah. You have the great bit where he's trying to figure out how to put the top hat on with the low ceiling, and then when the car hits a speed bump or the train car hits a speed bump it goes

down his head and he goes like fucking i'm wearing the pork pie hat like i gotta wear the classic buster hat uh basically justifying its own origin but then yeah 30 minutes in train arrives everyone puts together holy shit that's the son from the rival family. He finds the estate is just like this rundown shack. And 30 minutes into a 75-minute movie, the film is basically... Which I guess is also making fun of the Hatfields and McCoys, right? That is sort of like, why are you guys fighting over what is clearly just like Appalachian shacks or whatever, right? But the other family's totally well off. He's totally oblivious.

I think that was also the vibe. One of the Hatfields and McC's was poor and one was rich. Sure. Anyway, go on. Sorry. And the rest of the movie now is just he's crazy about this girl. Yes. He wants to spend time with her.

And she likes him. Yes. And they don't know all this other shit happening around them. And everyone wants to kill him. They want to kill him, but they can't kill him in their home. No. Right. That's their version of hospitality.

Right. That's the one rule. in their home. No. Right. That's their version of hospitality. Right. That's the one rule.

So you basically have three reels setting up the reality of the movie, the dramatic stakes, all of that, right? Right. To then get to the point

where you're now like, here's a good four reeler, a classic Buster Keaton, everything's set up, the dynamic is clear, you know, here are his rivals, here's what they want to do,

here's why he's oblivious to it. He's oblivious on multiple counts. And, yeah yeah the humor in this sort of like the maintaining of southern hospitality some idea of southern hospitality all they want to do is kill this guy but they can't do it at the dinner table they can't do it on these terms they have to get his attention over here there's so much of the um i feel like a lot of the buster character i mean we've talked about this in both of these movies but like he's like a toddler who is mimicking the behavior of adults without totally understanding what it is so much of the stuff once he's in the house of

everyone's sort of winking at each other and eyeballing each other and he just starts copying that without quite understanding or like the never-ending series of handshakes you know these things where he's like there's some language being spoken between adults in these gestures and these behaviors that i don't understand but i think i get it and i'll just start doing it it also really lends itself to farce you know the the kind of rule in the house that you can't kill anybody who's on the grounds. It makes the entire house into this stage set where it's sort of like every entrance into a door,

exit, right, has something to do with that game. So even after he figures it out, then there's a new vein of humor of him trying not to leave, right? Yes, which is very funny. Well, he's just a better home. He loves it here. He's in love with this girl. He's got a hut. You mentioned John Roberts.

I did not realize. So John Roberts, Joe Roberts, sorry, plays the sort of main Anfield, the main bully. He's the big guy. Yeah. He died like right after this movie was made. Yeah. This is the last film he did with Keaton after having been in virtually all of his shorts. He's in all the shorts.

He's in three ages, right? He's one of the cavemen. He appears throughout. He's just kind of shorts. He's in three ages, right? He's one of the cavemen. He appears throughout. He's just kind of one of the go-to heavies and had also been a friend of the whole Keaton family since Keaton's childhood

because he was a vaudeville guy. Right. So, yeah, it's real sad for Joe Roberts' fans and I think he's one of the great foils Keaton had in his career that he had a stroke

during the making of this movie and died, I think, shortly before it was released. Yes, he had a stroke. He returned to set, I think, shortly before it was released. Yes, he had a stroke. He returned to set, finished shooting, and then suffered another stroke and died. Yeah, basically it was the very, very last thing he did. Yeah, that's crazy.

But he's the perfect foil for Keaton in terms of size, right? And he also just gets it. I feel like he fits into those universes that Keaton creates, you know, in the way that his great leading ladies did and, you know, just some of his regulars. He's just... Just the thing of... In this one, obviously, he's got the whole get-up

with the sort of whiskers and, you know. But, like, when you look up, you know, like... They just knew back then that putting a hat on a guy was really all you needed to do. Well, the angle, the tilt. The angle of the hat. Yeah. He's got this, like, square head like a Frankenstein.

He has tremendous presence, right? I mean, even though he often plays the bad guy, there's something very lovable about Joe Roberts. Yeah, he's lovable. He's got a good face. His eyes are kind of, I don't know, like beady. And like that, for some reason, that's kind of involving about him. Maybe, I don't know.

The weird makeup that they would wear. Also him in the de-aging of the first prologue just cracks me up in his curly wig you know the bewigged joe roberts um but yes he is he is very funny uh natalie talmadge so natalie talmadge is uh is who he wanted uh to or no no, he wanted a different Talmadge in Three Ages, right? I already forgot. The sister, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But this is the one he's married to. Yes, his wife.

Yes, and this is her last movie ever. She's gorgeous. Yeah. She was also pregnant with their second child while making the movie, which he thought was a real mistake when he realized that, you know, she would be showing by the end, so she's like standing behind bushes and things like that also their their first son is the baby at the beginning who plays the little willie so there's actually four keatons in this movie there's natalie there's

buster there's little buster who's billed as buster jr his name was actually joseph's later changed to jimmy because when they divorced natalie changed his name that is brutal and there's also joe keaton joe keaton right joe is the engineer he's also Joe Keaton Joe Keaton the dad Is the engineer He's the grumpy train driver This is the one with the most family The most Keatons In it Because right

The whole Joseph thing is some family tradition So once they divorced She was like I am removing our son from your I mean it was just Your sick tradition It was such a bitter divorce on her part That she didn't want him to have any part of his father's name

So his name became Jimmy Talmadge Instead of Joseph Keaton Yeah And then wasn't there a thing that when they when the sons reached adult age they went to court and were like we like double signed this name change thing right oh really this i think i read that somewhere that she had sort of said never mind my kids are talmadges now they're not keatons and then when the kids hit their 20s they like went to court and were like we want to legally be talmadges we we co-sign what our mother decided as children. That may be the case because,

yeah, I think it was one of those things where they were pretty much kept apart. I mean, he had the legal right to see them, but, you know, she was really vindictive about it. So it wasn't until their teens, mid-teens or so, that they reconnected with him. Yeah. I mean, they had like, you know, though, that they reconnected with him. Yeah. I mean, they had like, you know, a marriage going from artistic collaborators to then basically people who lived under the same roof in separate beds and didn't have much to do to each other to people who like hated each other. Yeah.

I mean, I'm not even sure in hospitality that you could call them artistic collaborators, you know, like. Sure. The fascination with Natalie is that their marriage is such a black box. There's no writing she left behind. She didn't give any interviews about him. There's stories about her, you know, essentially hating him till the day of her death and trying to turn the whole family against him. But she never really said anything publicly about it. And so almost everything you know about her as a human being comes from watching her performance in this movie, which is so opaque. She's not bad, but she does not engage with the camera, really.

She's not the funniest of his leading ladies. You know, she doesn't get any chance to do physical comedy or anything like that. But they do have some actual warmth between the two of them at this point, which translates on screen. I agree. I think there's a dramatic rapport there, you know. But it's fascinating to watch her and wonder

what their marriage was like at this point, because it's such a period of him being obsessed with work, you know? Well, and also by all accounts, yes, he was not a precious artiste, but he was a workaholic. And then the thing that sort of takes their marriage from people on pleasant terms with each other who have drifted apart and don't have much in common to active animosity and fighting was by all accounts is alcoholism, which is very much him like fulfilling the cycle of his father. But it feels like he never seemed like, I don't know, correct me if I'm wrong here, like an angry drunk and more of a sort of sad sack drunk. Well, I also think in 1923, he didn't really have a drinking problem.

I'm sure he was a big social drinker, but yeah, it was the drinking and infidelity and unhappiness came along with professional unhappiness. And with him, basically, maybe he, you know, ignored his family and drank too much the way most dads of the 1920s did. But the main thing throughout the mid-20s,

I think, is that he found his true happiness in making movies. Right. It's in the 30s and the 40s when it just feels like he just gets defeated by everything and just becomes like a sad sack. Well, and by 1940, though, he starts to turn it around. And this is something I really wanted to emphasize in the book is that even though there is a really tragic chapter in the middle of his life, it is not at all the case that he just simply went downhill and drank himself to death. And in fact, his story ends up having a happy ending.

The last 20 years of his life, he was basically kind of reclaimed, re-appreciated. He obviously doesn't do work on the same level he did in the 20s, but it's like he's back on TV. He's in major movies. People like love him as a figure. Yeah, he never lacked for work after about 1937 or so, you know, but there were those dark, dark years in the mid 30s. But like later, he's like a mascot in those things, like when he's in Funny Thing Happened on My Way to the Farm or whatever. Yes, right.

And he'll have short-run TV shows and things like that. He's around. But yes, when he shows up in those things, it's sort of more like a non-defying history. Right, exactly. The sadness is that he didn't get much time behind the camera after that. You know, he was always in demand as a performer. Once he got through his worst drinking years, people always wanted him to perform in this and that, whether it was live or

on a screen. But he didn't get much of a chance to certainly do both at once, you know, which was his greatest skill always, that he's the guy in front of and behind the camera and having great ideas in both places. The fact that that skill was wasted for so many years is the saddest part. They bring him in as like an older expert to be a gag writer for things, but his hands weren't really deeply invested in the thing. Or he'd be used as a performer, but in a way where it felt like they didn't really understand. It's a little similar to a lot of the American Jackie Chan movies,

where it's like the entire way you're building this around him does not play to his strengths. And part of that was just where the industry was at, right? Because after sound came in, there just wasn't that freedom anymore. There was nobody except Chaplin because he was so wealthy, he could afford to make movies every six years or something like that. Right. He didn't have to.

But nobody had that kind of, you know, that that loosey goosey, like crazy, make it up as you go along freedom that he had in the 20s. Yeah. I mean, Jackie Chan is in so many ways like, you know, the modern era parent to Keaton, especially in the way he made his own films and built his own industry and his own, you know, sort of family of collaborators and all of that. But he talks about that so much where like when he would come over to the States, try to make American films and they'd be like, why can't you do the stunts that you're doing

in the Hong Kong films here in these American films? And he's like, because I take three months to practice each stunt. And then I do 200 takes of it until the one take that works out well. And you guys don't want to give me the time to do that. And I think Jackie Chan just kind of went like, look, if they'll pay me, I'll do this. Whatever. I'm fine. Right.

It wasn't. And he certainly was getting paid very well. And the movies were big enough that he didn't feel defeated by that. Keaton, as much as he did have a little bit of a renaissance in the last 20 years of his life,

there's some sadness to the fact that no one ever just sort of went like, you know this better than we do. Right. Hands off. Try to do your thing again.

And the limelight, the end sequence with Chaplin and Keaton together at the end of Limelight feels like the most pure Keaton you get in those final 20 years. But that's because he's being supported by someone who still has the freedom to make

things the way he wants to and is backing off and letting him kind of do his thing. Even there, though, and there's a bunch about this in the book, too. I find Limelight such a frustrating movie because it's the only time the two work together in front of a camera, right? Chaplin didn't want to let him steal too much. Yeah, it's hard to know exactly what went onto the cutting room floor, why the framing is the way it is. Even more than the editing, the framing of that limelight scene bothers me because you don't see them both at once enough, right? And so and the whole interaction of two clowns on stage together, two great legendary clowns should be that they're aware of each other, you know, and giving and

taking from each other. Chaplin, like, let him be Keaton more successfully than anyone else in decades, but also would not let him be the best that he could be. And by all accounts, the people in the room, like the audience that was watching the filming of that limelight scene was like on the floor laughing at the stuff Keaton was coming up with. And you don't see the vast majority of it on screen.

I mean, just quickly, limelight is like... It's a swan song film, a chaplain swan song film, came out in the 50s. About a sort of washed-up performer trying to give it one last go, and Keaton is his former partner he hasn't talked to in years, and you finally get to the end set piece, which is like, they're going to share the stage,

and it's great, but also it should be the greatest scene in history. It should be incredible, and instead it's sort of, right, interesting and pretty good. Yeah. And he weirdly won an Oscar for it 20 years later because the Oscars kind of fudged the rules and said it never came out in LA and now it's eligible. Because he never won an Oscar.

Yes. The waterfall! Come on, guys! What the fuck? How did he pull that off? How did he do that? I mean, even before the's the there's the nearly drowning sequence which is also very funny to talk about right because we talked about the the fall not working or the jump not working in in the three ages well here there's an even closer call closer

shave that he has with death where the wire that was holding him you know when he's being washed by the rapids down to the waterfall uh the wire broke so So there's this moment that he's, you know, going through the Truckee, I guess what, I don't know what river it is there. It's near Truckee, California. It's somewhere near Tahoe. And they're real rapids. They're actually dangerous. That's why he had a wire, right? Not usually typically a thing Keaton would do. And apparently it was a really scary moment. And he had already told them in advance, keep rolling no matter what happens, right? But they basically filmed him nearly drowning. Then he manages to grab onto a bush, which you see in the same shot.

And the part I love with that story is that after the, you know, they went down to get him and I think he may have been, you know, he was maybe unconscious, but, you know, he was full of water and stuff. And when he sort of came to the first thing he asked was, did Nat see? Like he wanted to know whether his wife saw him, which you could read two ways. Did she see? Because I don't want her to be worried or did she see because I want to impress her?

And I think it was the latter, right? They said, I'm afraid she did. Right. And then he said, did you get it? And so once again, as with three ages, they use that footage, which makes it all the more exciting, right? I mean, of course,

we don't necessarily know the wire is breaking, but if you know that and you watch it, you can see the moment that the kind of danger increases. And there's the sense of panic to him, like grabbing things and, yeah. You know, they were inventing a lot of stuff on the fly there, but like the waterfall itself is in a studio, correct? Like that's the...

I'm trying to find... Yeah, I think they built the waterfall. They built the waterfall over a tank, over a swimming pool. Right, they made a replica waterfall in a studio swimming pool, which is pretty cool. And that's all a matte, beautifully a swimming pool. Right. They made a replica waterfall in a studio swimming pool, which is pretty cool. And that's all a matte, beautifully painted matte in the background, which works really well.

The effect still holds up, I think. It does, which is always what's the... There's some on-set photos that are worth Googling of that moment, you know, because not only can you see the setup and sort of how they created the illusion of the waterfall, but you see that Keaton looks sort of scared. It's the moment right before he was going to do the jump

and he's tied, you know, at the waist and standing on this kind of wooden ledge. Right. You can see the artifice around him and he does not look very confident about the jump he's about to do. It was dangerous. He ingested a massive amount of water doing it

to the extent that they had to, like, get a doctor to look at him. I wonder if that was before or after the wire broke. I don't know which order they shot it in, but it would make you more apprehensive. Yes. But, right. Because they had these, like, pumps, like, pushing the water, because, you know, pushing it back up or whatever. The fall was six inches deep, and he would get caught underneath it, and it would just, like, pump water into his mouth.

Like, I mean, don't mess with waterfalls, guys. Yeah, he's hanging upside down there for a minute. Like, hey, you go down there, it's scary, but then you pop up and you're okay. Like, no, no, no. It's funny how many of his worst injuries were caused by water, too. Like, water was always kind of tricky. It's like the number one thing in Hollywood to this day is like, if you're going to make a movie with water, you'd like prepare for nightmares,

basically. Like it's still the most difficult thing to contend with. Yes. And fake, I guess. Yeah. Um, yeah.

But I, I read somewhere that like the, the production onset stills from this were basically kept secret for decades. Because they didn't want to reveal how they did it. Right. Right. He was like, so no,

just let people buy into the thing. Let it look real. I don't want them thinking of this as a special effect. But I think, yeah, it's like an incredibly sophisticated combination of massive sets, map paintings, forced perspective models placed closer to camera to build this out as a huge landscape. And the illusion

is perfect. And that moment is completely not funny, right? It's a pure thrill. It's like a Douglas Fairbanks, like, swashbuckling stunt. And it's still, I mean, I've heard in the past year, people gasp, you know, at that moment of the rescue.

And of course, she's replaced by a doll at that moment. If you look closely, you can see, like, it's just a rag doll. But you're not looking at her. You're looking at him.

It would be insane if his pregnant wife was being thrown down waterfalls. Yes. That's what Joe Senior would have done. Right. This movie was a huge hit, right? Like, this is movie Three Ages did well. This movie did like colossally well, I think. Right, which is sort of the most freedom he ever got to make a movie,

the most money he spent. You know, I think for him creatively and professionally, that would sort of be the pinnacle, the general. And this is what enabled that. It was a point of pride for him that his films were cheaper than Lloyd's and Chaplin's, that he was sort of more focused and lean. There were not indulgences in that kind of way.

So I, you know, as much as he had a blank check, it's like he would only spend the money relative to how successful his last movie was. indulgences in that kind of way. So, you know, as much as he had a blank check, it's like he would only spend the money relative to how successful his last movie was in terms of what he felt was the responsible amount to still make a film highly profitable. Right. But it was still that independent era where Joe Skank is just happy that he's turning a profit.

You know, and it's only a few years later when Louis Mayer starts turning huge profits by using the kind of factory-style studio system that Joe Skink realizes, wait, there's real money to be had here. What am I doing with one guy? A crazy stat, they would shoot this movie with two cameras side by side running concurrently so that they would have one negative for America and one negative for overseas. It's just such a physical media moment, right? Where you realize like it really is just stuff in a can that has to be mailed around.

But sometimes when they, you know, because some of his movies had been lost and then they put them back together or they're cobbled together from crappy elements. And, you know, they're constantly trying to come up with better versions, the best possible, most pristine versions of these films. And the versions we have right now

are generally really good and better than they've been in a long time. But when people are trying to compare elements, very often you're like, oh, this is off by two inches. You know, we have like two different versions of this scene, and one of them's from the overseas print,

and one of them is from the domestic print. Which one's the better one to use? It's, yeah, a fascinating thing to consider um now cowards say that uh there was not going to be a box office game cowards have said that um but they were wrong and can i call my shot uh go ahead i'm gonna nail these five for five i don't think you're gonna i'm gonna nail i know i have i remember when these zero of. I remember when these came out. I was a freshman in college. Three ages. Okay. September 24th, 1923. Okay.

September 24th, 1923. Okay, so sort of a dead period at the box office. You're coming off of some blockbusters, but award season hasn't ramped up. Okay, I think I can get these. Now, the number one film of 1923, I will spoil for you because it's not on this list, is Cecil B. DeMille's original Ten Commandments, the silent version of it,

which I've never seen, although I've seen like some clips from it, right? Like there's like some surviving, or I mean, I'm more meaning

like I've seen the things that he then later replicated. I think it's back in... Yeah, I'm more like, you know, I've seen bits of it. I'm surprised they went

the remake route rather than making a sequel. Yeah. Just add out Levin Commandment. It would have been so easy to just fucking up the stakes. All right. Oceans rules. I don't know. How am I supposed to do this?

Okay, so the number one film. Yeah, it's new this week. It stars Alexander Carr and Barney Bernard. Okay. It's a silent comedy based on ethnic Jewish caricature. Based on a Broadway play of the same Bernard. Okay. It's a silent comedy based on ethnic Jewish caricature based on a Broadway play of the same name. Okay. I'm going to suggest,

I'm going to guess that it's called Oigavalt. It's called Potash and Perlmutter. I should buy the remake rights to this. Isn't that crazy? I was going to guess the Coens and Kellys, which was another series of that, the Irish Jewish comedy, but Potash and Perlmutter has that.

There they are. Potash and Perlmutter on the screen at last. It's like one of those classic early silent things where they're like, well, these guys have been tearing up, you know, Broadway for 20 years. They're on their shtick. This is all I'm saying. Barry Keegan, Griffin Newman, Potash and Perlmutter. It's ready to go. So that's number one this week.

Number two, it stars Pola Negri and Jack Holt. Oh, fuck. I know this. I also want to tell you that Potash and Pearl Mudder has opened to $86,000. Not bad. That's humongous. This is a film by... It's a remake of a Cecil B. DeMille

film. Interesting. It's by George Fitzmaurice the director uh who who made the son of the shake you know which is a famous rudolph valentino film on the shake cheek yeah based on a public domain thing i don't fucking know what it's based on is it about jesus it's about a beautiful young south american woman and she's been betrothed to don pablo and she falls in love with a new york city stockbroker i mean it sounds pretty good it's called the cheat i mean that's a good title and uh the poster uh-huh is great because it's polonegri here pointing i mean i assume at the cheat uh what kind of numbers was it doing? 218 grand it's made so far

Five screens? Yeah, sure The next one is a western Silent western I'm gonna guess it's called Put Em Up It's called The Covered Wagon I should always go with a the Yeah Looks like a sort of, you know, expedition film

Covered wagons I don't have much for you on that one. Okay, the next one is, all right. This is so, this is actually gonna be really fun that we keep doing this. There were so many movies back then. They just churned them out. 75% of them are lost in time.

This one, there's, I really, there's nothing on it. It's directed by Charles Braben. Stars Corinne Griffith and Frank Mayo. It looks like it's set on a boat. Oh, fuck. Which Resident Evil is this? Is this Afterlife or is it Retribution?

It's called Six Days. Okay. And the final film in the top five this week, let me see, yes, it's a romantic drama directed by Alan Dwan starring Gloria Swanson.

Okay. The great Gloria Swanson. Oh, Alan Dwan is a great director of that time. Which, of course, means that it was a Paramount film. And it's a person's name. Yeah. Is the title. I'm going to guess Samantha.

Called Zaza. Well, that was not the game I was going to guess. And I... Did you read Marshall Schaefer's... Is that his name? Marshall Schaefer? You know, the Oscar book? What the hell is it called?

No, not Marshall Schaefer. Michael Shulman? Michael Shulman, there you go. Yeah, I reviewed it. Marshall Schaefer's another filmmaker. That story he has about Gloria Swanson returning to the Paramount lot for Sunset Boulevard. And she's sort of like mothballed at that point. And she's like, is anyone even going to care about me?

And she sees that her face is still on this big mural that's like painted on the side of the lot like at the front and she's kind of touched and the guy who painted that mural approaches her and he's like thank god for your face because everyone always wants to be at the front you know all the new stars and so i just keep you up there because like you know everyone respects you right you know and she's very touched by it. I'm surprised that six days was such a big hit. All right. Keaton's already done one week as a, as a two-reeler, right?

Why would anyone see a day less at a longer running? That's a good point. Okay. It's a fucking ripoff if you ask me. Now, our hospitality came out only two months later, November 1923. Gross 20% more, as JJ Statt here, it did about half a million dollars, a little over. So number one, of course, is a New York set film starring Marion Davies. Okay.

People might know her. Here's what I'm going to guess it's called. Famously, you know, William Randolph Hearst's Mistress. I'm going to guess that it's called The New York. It's called Little Old york it's called little old new york well i was pretty close yeah uh you've also got a new film a western about a real person okay this one is billy the kid close wild bill hickok fuck okay i'm gonna get one of these i'm trying to think figure out who was playing him i'm looking for partial credit i'm

looking to get enough correct. William Hart. In a wanton guess. A classic silence. Ah, off-parodied by Buster Keaton. Right. He was sort of like the John Wayne of his day. He was the sentimental cowboy. The weeping cowboy.

Okay, Griff, you actually will know and possibly has even seen the next one. Okay. It's an adaptation of a famous French novel. It's an adaptation of a French novel. Starring a master of the horror genre at the time. Oh, it must have been... Well, it's not London After Midnight, right?

That's a lost film. French novel. It's not Phantom of the Opera. No, it's the other one. Fuck. Oh, it's Lon Cheney's Hunchback of Notre Dame. Yes. The Hunchback of Notre Dame. God damn it. Okay other one. Fuck. Oh, oh, oh. It's Lon Chaney's Hunchback of Notre Dame. Yes. The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

God damn it. Okay. Yeah. Which, that's kind of a famous one, right? He's got the crazy Quasimodo makeup on. He's the best, yeah,

I mean, he's the best version of all those monsters. He's the best Phantom of the Opera. Yes. Really another great rabbit hole to go down is see all of Lon Chaney's

movies. Doesn't take long and he's just brilliant beyond belief. He doesn't have that many, like, or that many surviving films. He died fairly young. He died after only one sound film do you know london after midnight david uh no it is a completely lost movie that only stills exist

for but the character design is so fucking insane that people lose their minds about like god we've got to find this oh i've seen this design before it's very cool with the top hat yes that's sort of stretched out eyes and the creepy goblin teeth yeah all right now number four exciting news for you the covered wagon is still in the top five wow people want the wagon wagon the sleeper hit a 23 uh and the number five is a uh a cross-dressing drama girl dressing as a boy okay uh I think, well, it looks like she wants to play the violin. It's called The Violinist. Anna Nielsen? James Kirkwood? Tully Marshall?

Anna Nielsen. She was sort of a Greta Garbo rip-off Swedish star. See, you know your silent stars better than I. This is showing me up as somebody who doesn't have a deep enough knowledge of non-comic silent films because I haven't gotten a single one of these. But that is such a

deep, deep well. And it's partly, it's barely, it's like half artistic to understand these things, but half like historical excavation, right? Like trying to find these. The comedy and the horror films are preserved more than the straight dramas, even though they were the biggest films. Because the straight dramas are boring though they were the biggest. Yeah.

Well, just silent drama has aged differently. I think it's still fascinating to watch, but it feels like a historical document. It's an artifact more than anything else. Right. Is this movie like the crowd is incredible. Obviously there are great.

Oh yeah. I mean, and especially in the late twenties, right. I mean, all the Lon Chaney stuff, man, just so good. Sorry,

go ahead. Is it called the violinist? No, it's called Pon Chaney stuff. Man, just so good. Sorry, go ahead. Is it called The Violinist? No, it's called Ponjola. You never would have gotten it. So that's our box office game. Look forward to five more editions of that. I can't fucking wait. Potash and Pearl Mutter too.

Still muttering. Potash and Pearl Mutter is really top to top. I hope we see Potash and Pearl Mutter go bananas and like, yeah. How many of them did they make? They did two sequels. I hope we see Potash and Perlmutter go bananas. I don't know. How many of them did they make? They must have come up. They did two sequels.

They did two sequels. Okay, don't tell me what the names are. No, they might come up. In the third one, the S in Potash is a three. Yeah, right, right. Yes, Potash and Perlmutter cubed. Yeah, this ethnic Jewish humor. That's really crazy. I would have made a fucking killing in this day.

All right. We have to be done. Thank God we're doing the next episode on a different day. We initially were going to do these back to back, and then Dana was quickly like, that might be crazy. And you'll be able to hear that episode in four days, May 11th, Patreon, Buster Shorts. Dana, you're the best.

Man, taping this show is one of the few podcast things I do that gives me energy instead of draining it away. I love it. That's very nice to hear because it drains my energy, but I'm glad we give people energy. It's because it's your job. You know, I'm coming here for fun. Like, I just taped my own podcast. That was draining.

Love it, but it's exhausting. Then I come here and I fill the well up again. Doing Culture Gab Fest. I'm so glad to hear that my my mom is always excited when you're on the show you're in the very limited group of guests that she uh don't listen she tries to listen other times i think she likes it when there's an actual grown-up on the show like you and bilga wait now i feel like a school mom you're not a school mom we justarm. We just respect you deeply. We respect you deeply. We want to not be annoyed. Yes.

I think, look, I think we meet in the middle here, right? I think you're like, this is fun. You guys are silly. And we're like, oh, Dana's making us behave a little better than we usually do. And it's a good meeting point. Dana, everyone should read Hammer Man. Get the audiobook, listen to it, however you want to digest it.

And also Slate Culture Gab Fest, podcast that you co-host. People should listen to that and read all the stuff you write at Slate. Yeah, all I can say is the actual life story of Keaton and his work and his historical context is just so much more than we could possibly scratch the surface of here,

even though we've been talking for so long and it's been so fun to talk but just if any of this stuff intrigues you dive into that book dive into anything else about him also can i recommend a great documentary about keaton please this is really good background if you want to dive into this whole series your book is very is has such broad context too which i think that's the thing i was like if you like this show it's not just like connoisseur of context. It's not just like, Buster Keaton was born, you know, yon day. Yeah, I don't think of it as a biography. It's sort of like a critical exploration of his whole lifespan. It's placing him in a time.

Anyway, the documentary to watch on him is on YouTube in three parts. It's a British documentary from the 80s, and it's called A Hard Act to Follow by the great, great silent film scholar Kevin Brownlow. So you'll really see just clips of all this stuff, like images of him from childhood, just a lot of great background and it's beautifully done. So Hard Act to Follow. Okay.

Okay. It's probably like on YouTube. Absolutely. He just said it was on YouTube. Those things are right. Yeah. All right. Well, you know what?

I was looking it up. Well, you know what? We'll definitely have Marie post a picture of him In the beard balding as his kid Because you gotta see it Yeah yeah the upsetting miniature Irishman Buster Here's all I'm saying

We can divorce this from The negative stereotyping of the Irish But I think we should bring this look back We can call it something different But I think little kids should have receding hairlines and chin strap beards. Like how this is an Irish guy. Yes. Like that's an Irish guy.

But like that's the joke. The sort of old image of an Irishman. Yeah. You should have a big beard is what I'm saying. Maybe I should. Big bushy beard. Yeah. Maybe I should.

All right. Okay. We gotta be done. Yep. Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe. Thank you to Marie Barty for our social media and posting a picture of Buster Keaton

as a kid with a bald wig and a chinstrap beard. Thank you to Joe Bone and Pat Reynolds for our artwork. J.J. Birch for our research, which a lot of research necessary for this series. And he's done an incredible job on these dossiers and also somehow kept them shorter. Yes, good job, JJ.

Yes, nice and dense. Full of good meat. Thank you to AJ McKeon, Alex Barron for our editing, Lane Montgomery and the Great American Novel for our theme song. You can go to blankcheckpod.com for links to some real nerdy shit, including our Patreon Blank Check special features

where we do franchise commentaries. We're doing the Planet of the Apes series right now, the classic Planet of the Apes movies. But also, as we said, we will have

a Buster Keaton shorts. Dana's pick, a curated selection, a Buster shorts episode coming up soon there. And now on the Patreon, Griff, we have a new option for fans.

This is an alpha test. It's a brand new feature on Patreon. No betas allowed. Exactly. Basically an option for people to join our Patreon for free so they can stay updated on what's going on there without jumping in to subscribe.

To sort of get a sense of it. We've been unlocking episodes after two years and making them free, but that requires going to the Patreon page and looking up from when those things got posted and are now unlocked. And we've just, it's a streamlined process now. You can sign up for a free membership. You'll get notified whenever an old episode

gets unlocked for free. And you'll also get notified about new stuff. And if any of that tickles your fancy, you can get notified about new stuff. And then you can upgrade to paid to check it out if you want or whatever. Or whatever. But what's really nice is that, like Griffin was saying, with the process now, it's a little bit more, you know, labor intensive. Kind of comb through the archives.

Once you sign up for this free membership, you'll receive an email notification. I mean, this is the real thing. And then you'll be able to get the content. So you want to listen to us talk about Iron Man 2 and without a care in the world of pandemics in our voices.

I think we're up to pandemic now. I think now we're unlocking pandemic episodes. We're actually in the Star Wars. Oh, okay. So not quite. I'm about to clog a toilet. Very shortly, we'll be doing Toy Story pandemic episodes in which everyone feels normal. Don't remember any of that.

Honestly, a lot of that is a total blank to me. But it exists, and it's coming free because we make our Patreon episodes free. That lineup, though, that 2020 lineup, we got Star Wars, Toy Story, Mission Impossible, Alien. It's a good franchise. No, it is.

Yeah. Might have to do some of them again. No. Now we're being weird. Never going back. Tune in next week for... Sherlock Jr. and the Navigator. Ooh, look at that.

So that's kind of a big one. Two fucking masterpieces. Yeah, right. Yeah. Through time at bat, he makes one of the best films ever. Yeah. So tune in for that. Yep.

And as always, I'm just calling my shot i'm gonna go five for five on every box office game for the rest of this series