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New York, May 12, 2010 - Kino
International is proud to release on DVD, LOST KEATON, a two-disc collection of
the rarely-seen sound comedy shorts that Buster Keaton made with Educational
Pictures in the mid-1930s.
Never
before have all sixteen films been available in one collection on VHS or DVD in
the United States, and all of the films are newly mastered from archival 35MM
source materials.
Made from
1934 to 1937, Keaton's comedies for Educational were a welcome return to his
roots. Keaton had cut his teeth on filmmaking with a series of two-reelers in
the early 1920s, following an apprenticeship under Fatty Arbuckle in the late
1910s. The two-reeler was a natural format for Keaton, and after a disastrous
tenure at MGM, the work at Educational seemed to reinvigorate him. He worked at
a breathless pace, starring in sixteen shorts in three years. Each film had a
budget of just $20,000, of which $5,000 covered to Keaton's salary.
The
budgets may have been small, but it's clear that Keaton's creative talents were
still extremely sharp. In THE GOLD GHOST, for instance, he converts barrels
into impromptu bowling balls, mowing down a gang of outlaws as if they were
bowling pins, while in HAYSEED ROMANCE, seemingly simple acts like washing
dishes or fixing a small roof leak become complicated - and masterful - comic
set pieces.
ONE RUN ELMER feels like a throwback to his silent days, with the
climactic baseball game staged almost entirely free of dialogue and showcasing
a succession of increasingly outrageous gags. GRAND SLAM OPERA is widely
regarded as the best of the series, and reportedly was Keaton's personal
favorite as well. It opens with the unexpected sight of him singing, and
includes a juggling routine that is pure Keaton.
Twelve of
the shorts are directed by Charles Lamont, who later had a long career at
Universal directing Abbott & Costello and Ma & Pa Kettle comedies. THE
TIMID YOUNG MAN would mark the only occasion that Keaton would be directed by
another silent comedy master, Mack Sennett, while THE CHEMIST - an almost
surreal comedy involving love potions, noiseless explosives and shrinking
scientists - is directed by Al Christie, who had once been one of Sennett's
greatest rivals.
In the
1920s, Earle W. Hammons's Educational Pictures, whose motto was "The Spice of
the Program," had been an important independent producer of comedy shorts,
including the enormously popular Felix the Cat cartoons. By the mid-1930s,
however, the transition to sound and the Great Depression had taken their toll,
and the studio was struggling. More than ever before, budgets were tight and
shooting schedules were short, and Educational became a home for a virtual
parade of former giants who had similarly fallen on hard times, including
Sennett, Christie, and the comedian Harry Langdon. (The studio also proved a
breeding ground for such future stars as Danny Kaye, Bob Hope, Milton Berle and
even Shirley Temple.)
For many
years, the Educational shorts, like much of Keaton's output in the 1930s, were
ignored or dismissed. Slowly but surely, however, they have been rediscovered
by some critics. Leonard Maltin was among the first to recognize the value of
the Educational comedies. In his book The
Great Movie Shorts, he wrote of the series, "Legend has it that Buster
Keaton's career started sliding downhill in 1930 and never stopped - that his
talkie films are unspeakable horrors...The talking films, however, still exist,
and they disprove what has been said for so many years. To be sure, they are
not in the same league as Keaton's silents, but they show a comic talent very
much alive."
This new
DVD set will bring overdue attention to an unjustly neglected series of films
by one of the cinema's comic masters.
Special Features Stills
Gallery Film notes
by David Macleod, author of The Sound of
Buster Keaton "Why They
Call Him Buster," a musical montage of pratfalls and stunts
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