Micro-review · 1928
Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928)
- Directed by
- Charles Reisner
- Country
- United States
- Running time
- About 70 minutes
- Our rating
- ★★★★½ 4.5/5
The first hour is a gentle father-son comedy on a riverboat. The last 20 minutes are a cyclone that rips a town apart around Keaton. Yes, the house front really fell on him. Watch the hat-trying scene too, it's a perfect bit of small comedy.
The longer review
William Canfield Sr., a big, gruff riverboat captain played by Ernest Torrence, hasn't seen his son since the boy was a baby. When the son arrives by train, he turns out to be Buster Keaton, a small, neat college boy with a pencil mustache, a ukulele and a beret. The old man is not pleased.
The first hour plays this out as a gentle comedy. Junior tries to become the son his father wants, falls for the daughter of his father's business rival, and makes a mess of everything on the boat. The best small scene is in a hat shop, where his father tries one hat after another on him while Keaton, deadpan, briefly flashes his own famous flat porkpie and quickly hands it back. It's a joke about Keaton's own image, and it's lovely.
The final 20 minutes are something else. A cyclone hits the town, and Keaton spent a large share of the budget making it real: wind machines, breakaway streets, whole buildings that collapse and fly. Junior staggers through it, leaning at impossible angles into the wind, getting carried off by a flying bed, clinging to a tree that is torn out by its roots.
And there's the shot. The front wall of a house falls onto Keaton, who stands still as it crashes down around him and the open attic window frames his body. It was a real, heavy facade, with only a few inches to spare. It's the most famous stunt in silent film, and seeing it in context, at the end of a long sequence of chaos, is better than any clip.
Before you watch
The film is officially credited to Charles Reisner, with Keaton directing uncredited. Restored versions with recorded scores are easy to find.