The Blacksmith was inspired by Longfellow's poem, The Village Blacksmith; Keaton sought to dismantle Longfellow's self- consciously dreamy view of menial labor. In the film, Keaton plays the assistant to a rather pointlessly angry blacksmith (Joe Roberts), the same kind of bully who used to continually harass Charlie Chaplin's comic characters. The relationship between the two co-workers is really just an excuse for Buster to wreak havoc for twenty minutes, and then, in the end, win the girl (Virginia Fox, who, in real life, would go on to marry Darryl F. Zanuck). A remarkably high percentage of the gags here score a direct bull's-eye, and Keaton and Roberts, who were old friends from vaudeville, are a great pairing. And, as always, Buster's performance is a marvel of restraint.
Keaton was known to meticulously plan even his two-reelers in advance, and The Blacksmith was no exception. However, he preferred to block scenes out very quickly, so it left him room to improvise should inspiration strike. Unlike Chaplin, who would sometimes shoot the same sequence for days before he felt that he got it right, Keaton was likely to use the first take. He also preferred to film at real locations, rather than sets, because a real setting often supplied more comic possibilities.
Maybe even more so than most performers, a lot of misinformation exists concerning Keaton's on-screen and off screen personality. In her paper, The Buster Keaton Myths, Patricia Eliot Tobias attempts to set the record straight. Perhaps the biggest myth is that Keaton never, ever registered any emotion on his face. That couldn't be further from the truth, and, over the years, Keaton himself had a lot to say about this misperception. It turns out that he had his reasons for developing such a dour screen persona.
"One of the first things I noticed," he once said, "was that whenever I smiled or let the audience suspect how much I was enjoying myself they didn't seem to laugh as much as usual." So he transformed his approach, noting "it was on purpose that I started looking miserable, humiliated, hounded and haunted, bedeviled, bewildered, and at my wit's end." One of his early co-stars, Bartine Burkett, confirmed that the Buster we saw on the screen was not the same one she knew personally: "We'd be right in the middle of a take, and he'd think of something funny. He'd ruin the take, and we'd have to do it all over again. But he laughed at everything very easily, and it was hard for him to be solemn, you know."
This persona extended to Keaton's off-screen life, where fans assumed he was as despondent as he appeared on film. Though Keaton suffered through financial ruin and a period of several years where he drank far too much, he always insisted that he was happy. "Because of the way I looked on the stage and screen," he said, "the public naturally assumed I felt hopeless and unloved in my personal life. Nothing could be farther from the fact. As long as I can remember, I have considered myself to be a fabulously lucky man."
Director: Buster Keaton, Malcolm St. Clair
Writer: Buster Keaton, Malcolm St. Clair
Producer: Joseph M. Schenck, Raymond Rohauer
Cinematographer: Elgin Lessley
Principal Cast: Buster Keaton (Blacksmith's Assistant), Joe Roberts (Blacksmith), Virginia Fox (Horsewoman).
B&W-21m.
by Paul Tatara
