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Buster Keaton

The Art of Buster Keaton, an 11-disk set by Kino

The Art of Buster Keaton

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Editorial Review of The Art of Buster Keaton, courtesy of Amazon.com

buy-from-amazon Buster Keaton was arguably the cinema’s first modernist, an old-fashioned romantic with a 20th-century mind behind a deadpan visage. His films brim with some of the most breathtaking stunts and ingenious gags ever put on film, all perfectly engineered to look effortless. And, as Kino’s magnificent 11-disc boxed set The Art of Buster Keaton conclusively shows, they are among the funniest ever made. Keaton warped gags until they left the plane of reality in such shorts as The Playhouse (1921) and The Frozen North(1922), and takes a logic-defying leap into the very nature of cinema itself in his hilarious Sherlock Jr. (1924).

He takes on the mechanical world with Rube Golberg ingenuity in The Navigator(1924) and perfects his match between man and massive machine in Steamboat Bill Jr. (1928), which features the funniest hurricane scene ever put to film, and The General (1927), one of the greatest comedies of all time.

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Buster Keaton's The General (The Ultimate Two-Disc Edition)

The General

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The General (The Ultimate Two-Disc Edition)

Product description of The General courtesy of Amazon.com

buy-from-amazon NEWLY MASTERED IN HD FROM A 35MM ARCHIVE PRINT STRUCK FROM THE ORIGINAL CAMERA NEGATIVE
THE NUMBER 18 GREATEST FILM OF ALL TIME (AFI 100 YEARS… 100 MOVIES)

Consistently ranked among the greatest films ever made, Buster Keaton s THE GENERAL is so brilliantly conceived and executed that it continues to inspire awe and laughter with every viewing. This Kino Ultimate 2 Disc Edition was mastered in HD from a 35mm archive print struck from the original camera negative. Rejected by the Confederate army as unfit, and taken for a coward by his beloved Annabelle Lee (Marion Mack), young Johnny Gray (Buster Keaton) is given a chance to redeem himself when Yankee spies steal his cherished locomotive. Johnny wages a one-man war against hijackers, an errant cannon and the unpredictable hand of fate while roaring along the iron rails. Every shot has the authenticity and the unassuming correct composition of a Mathew Brady Civil War photograph, wrote film historian David Robinson, No one not even Griffith or Huston and certainly not Fleming (Gone With the Wind) caught the visual aspect of the Civil War as Keaton did.Read More »The General

The Buster Keaton CollectionThe Buster Keaton Collection presents three of the first films (one, The Cameraman, a near masterpiece) Keaton made for MGM beginning in 1928, an arrangement that gradually ushered the great comic actor and director into the sound era but ultimately deprived him of creative control. The Cameraman, considered by many to be Keaton’s last important silent work, is an unusual story about a tintype portrait photographer (Keaton) who becomes a newsreel cameraman in order to win the heart of a secretary (Marceline Day). After flubbing an assignment by double-exposing some action footage, the hapless hero tries to prove himself in several memorable sequences of Keatonesque knockabout comedy (including a Chinatown street battle). There are also a couple of grace notes, such as a scene set in Yankee Stadium in which a solo Keaton exquisitely mimes the moves and attitudes of a pitcher. But The Cameraman’s strange, almost subconscious power is in its variation on an old Keaton refrain: The hero’s conflict over different kinds of authenticity, represented here on either side of a motion picture lens–the difference between capturing something real and living it. The Cameraman shows obvious and unfortunate signs of MGM’s insistence that Keaton, long accustomed to improvising scenes, conform to prepared shooting scripts. But it is less stifling than the second feature (Keaton’s last silent movie) in this set, the 1929 Spite Marriage, a slight farce about a pants-presser (Keaton) who borrows his customers’ fine threads to attend the theatre every night. There he worships an actress (Dorothy Sebastian) so furious with her caddish lover and co-star (Edward Earle) that she asks Keaton to marry her. The predictable results are unworthy of a Keaton film, but he does shine in several hilarious sequences, such as a disastrous turn as a bit player in his soon-to-be-wife’s stage dramas. Finally, 1930’s Free and Easy, Keaton’s talkie debut, is a garish MGM valentine to itself, trotting out celebrity actors and directors (Lionel Barrymore, Cecil B. DeMille, Fred Niblo) in a wooden story set on a movie lot. But while Keaton struggles with dialogue and a script that frequently sidelines him, he has many good moments causing havoc on film sets. –Tom Keogh Product Description of The Buster Keaton Collection A two-disc DVD collection that spotlights the actor’s MGM period. “TCM Archives: The Buster Keaton Collection” features two of Keaton’s funniest silents, “The Cameraman,” re-mastered with a new score by former Frank Zappa band member Arthur Barrow, and “Spite Marriage” (featuring its original 1929 Vitaphone musical score) along with “Free and Easy,” Keaton’s first talkie. The DVD set also features film historian Kevin Brownlow’s poignant new documentary “So Funny It Hurt: Buster Keaton and MGM.” Considered by many cinema’s greatest silent clown, Buster Keaton was a consummate practitioner of physical comedy whose career began in vaudeville at the age of three. Wearing trademark slapshoes and big baggy pants identical to his father’s, most gags involved pratfalls with his father kicking him across the stage or tossing him into the air. Within a few years of his debut, Keaton was scoring rave reviews which applauded the physical comedy that would come to be so much a part of his film fame. “The dexterity or expertness with which Joe Keaton handles ‘Buster’ is almost beyond belief of studied ‘business.’ The boy accomplishes everything attempted naturally, taking a dive into the backdrop that almost any comedy acrobat of more mature years could watch with profit” (Variety, March 12, 1910). Details of The Buster Keaton Collection Films The Cameraman – After becoming infatuated with a pretty office worker, Keaton sets out to become a newsreel cameraman in order to be closer to his dream girl. Keaton’s first film for MGM, made in 1928, is considered one of his funniest masterworks and offers up a feast of visual gags. The newly remastered DVD includes a new score by Arthur Barrow. Spite Marriage – In this 1929 silent laugh-filled classic, Keaton stars as Elmer, a man madly in love with stage star Trilbey Drew. When Trilbey’s boyfriend gets engaged to another woman, she marries Elmer in a desperate attempt to get even. This was Keaton’s final silent comedy, and is presented here with its original Vitaphone music score. Free and Easy – In Keaton’s first talkie, he stars as an agent to beauty contest winner Elvira Plunkett. When Elvira decides to try her luck in Hollywood, Elmer goes along to help and the two soon find themselves falling in love. Chaos ensues when the couple must contend with Elvira’s disapproving mother and a handsome movie star, who also has his sights set on the lovely Elvira. This 1930 classic is highlighted by guest appearances from a host of other MGM stars of the era including Robert Montgomery and Lionel Barrymore.

The Buster Keaton Collection

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Editorial Review of The Buster Keaton Collection, courtesy of Amazon.com

buy-from-amazon The Buster Keaton Collection presents three of the first films (one, The Cameraman, a near masterpiece) Keaton made for MGM beginning in 1928, an arrangement that gradually ushered the great comic actor and director into the sound era but ultimately deprived him of creative control. The Cameraman, considered by many to be Keaton’s last important silent work, is an unusual story about a tintype portrait photographer (Keaton) who becomes a newsreel cameraman in order to win the heart of a secretary (Marceline Day). After flubbing an assignment by double-exposing some action footage, the hapless hero tries to prove himself in several memorable sequences of Keatonesque knockabout comedy (including a Chinatown street battle). There are also a couple of grace notes, such as a scene set in Yankee Stadium in which a solo Keaton exquisitely mimes the moves and attitudes of a pitcher. But The Cameraman’s strange, almost subconscious power is in its variation on an old Keaton refrain: The hero’s conflict over different kinds of authenticity, represented here on either side of a motion picture lens–the difference between capturing something real and living it.

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Our Hospitality, starring Buster Keaton and Natalie Talmadge

Our Hospitality

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Product Description of Our Hospitality, courtesy of Amazon.com

buy Our Hospitality from Amazon.com Our Hospitality – Like his 1926 film The General, this elaborate historical comedy broadened the boundaries of slapstick and proved that Buster Keaton was not just a comedian, he was an artist. Keaton stars as youthful dreamer Willie McKay, who travels westward on a rickety locomotive to claim his birthright, only to find that his inheritance is a shack. And he learns that the object of his affection (Keaton s real-life wife, Natalie Talmadge) is the daughter of a man with whom his family has been engaged in a long, violent feud. McKay s personal struggles are punctuated by brilliant slapstick set pieces that involve an exploding dam, raging waterfalls, and a primitive steam engine. Keaton supervised the design and construction of the train, which he revived two years later for the short The Iron Mule (in which he appears without credit as an Native American chief).

This definitive edition of OUR HOSPITALITY features an exquisite orchestral score by Carl Davis, performed by the Thames Silents Orchestra; a documentary on the making of the film; and a rare alternate cut entitled Hospitality . SPECIAL FEATURES: Music composed and conducted by Carl Davis, performed by The Thames Silents Orchestra (in 5.1 Surround or 2.0 Stereo), Musical score compiled by Donald Hunsberger (2.0 Stereo), The Iron Mule (1925, 19 Min.), with music by Ben ModeL, Original documentary on the making of the film, written by film historian Patricia Eliot Tobias with David B. Pearson, Hospitality, a 49-minute alternate cut of the film, with an explanatory introduction, and an organ score by Lee Erwin, 2 Galleries: Photos & Snapshots

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The Saphead (1920) starring Buster Keaton

The Saphead

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Editorial review of The Saphead (1920) starring Buster Keaton, courtesy of Amazon.com

buy The Saphead from Amazon.com In his first starring role (and the film that launched his career), Buster Keaton stars in The Saphead as Bertie Van Alstyne, the spoiled son of a powerful Wall Street financier. Unable to escape the wealth and comfort that are foisted upon him, he pursues individuality in a series of comic misadventures in the speakeasies of New York, at the altar of matrimony, and even on the floor of the American stock exchange. The Saphead was instrumental in establishing Keaton as a bona fide star and greatly influenced his formulation of the Buster persona: a lonely, stone-faced soul thwarted by circumstance yet undauntedly resourceful and indefatigable in his struggle for love and survival within a chaotic world.

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Steamboat Bill Jr. starring Buster Keaton

Steamboat Bill Jr.

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Steamboat Bill Jr. starring Buster KeatonProduct Description of Steamboat Bill Jr. courtesy of Amazon.com

buy Steamboat Bill Jr. from Amazon.com

 The last of the independent features made in the prime of Buster Keaton‘s career, Steamboat Bill Jr. is a large-scale follow-up to The General, substituting a Mississippi paddle wheel for the locomotive, and replacing the spectacle of the Civil War with a catastrophic hurricane. Keaton stars as William Canfield, Jr., a Boston collegian who returns to his deep-southern roots to reunite with his father, a crusty riverboat captain(Ernest Torrence) who is engaged in a bitter rivalry with a riverboat king coincidentally, the father of Willie s sweetheart (Marion Byron). Keaton s athleticism and gift for inventive visual humor are in top form, and the cyclone that devastates a town (and sends houses literally crashing down around him) is perhaps the most ambitious, awe-inspiring and hilarious slapstick sequence ever created.

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Pajama Party (1964) starring Annette Funicello, Don Rickles, Buster Keaton

Pajama Party

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Pajama Party (1964) starring Annette Funicello, Don Rickles, Buster Keaton

buy Pajama Party from Amazon.com In short, Pajama Party  is an Annette Funicello beach party movie.  But in addition to the gyrating young girls in bikinis,Pajama Party adds large amounts of clown-level  zaniness as well. The basic story has 3 intertwining plots – a Martian invasion (led by a clean cut, inept Martian teenager and managed by Don Rickles), a beach party complete with teenage angst, and some inept crooks (including Buster Keaton as an American Indian, still wearing his traditional pork pie hat — with a feather in it). There’s a lot of humor in the movie, with slapstick that borders on the Looney Tunes. Surprisingly, I enjoyed it and hope you do as well.

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The Navigator, starring Buster Keaton and Kathryn McGuire

The Navigator

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The Navigator, starring Buster Keaton and Kathryn McGuire

buy The Navigator from amazon.com The Navigator is one of Buster Keaton’s best films, and it’s easy to see why.  In The Navigator, Buster Keaton plays the part of Rollo Treadway. He’s a young man who is rich, but without purpose in his life.  He decides to propose to his girlfriend, who rejects his proposal.  Heartbroken, he decides to go on a cruise to help him forget about his trouble.  At the same time, his girlfriend and her father are involved in a problem on a large ship that he owns.  This results in the girlfriend and Buster both being on board the ship as it is set adrift.

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Kino - Lost Keaton - 16 comedy shorts - 2 DVD set

Lost Keaton

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Product Description of Lost Keaton

buy-from-amazon Kino - Lost Keaton - 16 comedy shorts - 2 DVD setFor Buster Keaton, the era of the talkies was a tumultuous time. As a result of signing with MGM, the quality, the quality of his ambitious, eclectic comedies began to decline and in 1934, he signed a contract with Earle W. Hammons Educational Pictures which, despite its name, specialized in comedy short subjects. Keaton’s move to Educational was a return to his roots, crafting a stream of two reel comedies in rapid succession, as he had done in the early 1920s, when he first refined his cinematic craft.The films Buster Keaton made with Educational Pictures (ALL sixteen of which are collected here) pay homage to his earlier work, but at the same time incorporated the element of sound, all while exploring new possibilities for his recurring comic persona, Elmer.Read More »Lost Keaton