The Balloonatic

In 1920, Buster Keaton parted ways with Fatty Arbuckle, with whom he had collaborated on many comedies. Over the next three years, Keaton launched his own studio in the heart of Hollywood, Buster Keaton Productions, Inc., and made 19 independent two-reelers. The first eight were released by Metro, the latter eleven, including The Balloonatic (1923), by First National. Producer Joe Schenck, who had also left Arbuckle's outfit to stay with Keaton, ran the business end of things and left everything else to Buster. Thanks to Schenck's trust, Keaton had total creative freedom and the result was one brilliantly inventive comedy short after another. Keaton employed a full creative team of gagmen and technicians, but he supervised every aspect of the films himself, rising at 6:00am, planning and shooting all day, and often playing baseball games with his crew until the wee hours.

There were no scripts, but detailed story conferences were held each day. Keaton later recalled, "When the three writers and I had decided on a plot, we could start. We always looked for the story first, and the minute somebody came up with a good start, we always jumped the middle. We never paid any attention to that. We jumped to the finish. A man gets into this situation; how does he get out of it? As soon as we found out how to get out of it, then we went back and worked on the middle. We always figured the middle would take care of itself."

The "great stone face" - Keaton's famous deadpan demeanor - was carefully honed during this period. Keaton later explained, "Whenever I smiled or let the audience suspect how much I was enjoying myself, they didn't seem to laugh as much as usual. I guess people just never do expect any human mop, dishrag, beanbag or football to be pleased by what is being done to him. At any rate, it was on purpose that I started looking miserable, humiliated, hounded and haunted, bedeviled, bewildered and at my wit's end."

Less a story than a succession of gags loosely tied together, The Balloonatic finds Keaton walking through an amusement park and eventually floating away in a hot-air balloon. He lands in the forest where he encounters Phyllis Haver, and the gags mount as they try to survive in the wilderness. The Balloonatic was one of Keaton's last two-reelers before he moved on to feature-length comedies. He was anxious to make the move as Chaplin and Lloyd had already begun to do. Finally Schenck agreed to hold meetings with the stockholders of the company, and everyone agreed features were a logical idea because they would generate higher revenues. Production of two-reelers ceased, and almost six months later Keaton's first feature, The Three Ages (1923), was released to theaters.

Producer: Joseph M. Schenck
Director: Edward F. Cline, Buster Keaton
Screenplay: Edward F. Cline, Buster Keaton
Cinematography: Elgin Lessley
Cast: Buster Keaton, Phyllis Haver.
BW-27m.

by Jeremy Arnold

TCM's program of three Buster Keaton shorts includes Cops (1922), which the stone-faced comic dismissed as a routine effort but many fans came to consider one of the all-time great two-reelers. Keaton plays the wistful suitor of a pretty girl (Virginia Fox) who refuses to see him until he proves himself a success in business. The short climaxes with a brilliantly staged chase involving a parade, an anarchist's bomb, Keaton careening about in a horse-drawn wagon that contains a load of stolen furniture, and an army of pursuing policemen. Some of silent comedy's most inventive sight gags are employed here, with the athletic Keaton showing his mastery of physical comedy. The film also is distinguished by an ending that is bittersweet yet avoids sentimentality.

The Blacksmith (1922) casts Keaton as the hapless assistant of a burly, blustery man (Joe Roberts) who works on automobiles as well as shoeing horses. Some classic gags are built around Keaton's efforts to help his girlfriend (Virginia Fox again) choose the right shoe for her horse, and the destruction of a luxurious Rolls Royce.

The Balloonatic (1923) has a very free-floating plot as Keaton rides a hot-air balloon to a landing in a woods where he finds a girl (Phyllis Haver) who proves more adept than he at survival skills in the Great Outdoors.

All three shorts were produced by Joseph Schenck and co-written and directed by Keaton. Later in 1923 Keaton would switch from shorts to feature-length films.

Cops:
Producer: Joseph M. Schenck
Director: Edward F. Cline, Buster Keaton
Screenplay: Edward F. Cline, Buster Keaton
Cinematography: Elgin Lessley
Film Editing: Buster Keaton
Music: Gaylord Carter
Cast: Buster Keaton (The Young Man), Joe Roberts (Police Chief), Virginia Fox (Mayor¿s Daughter), Eddie Cline (Hobo), Steve Murphy (Conman).
BW-22m.

The Blacksmith:
Producer: Raymond Rohauer, Joseph M. Schenck
Director: Buster Keaton, Malcolm St. Clair
Screenplay: Buster Keaton, Malcolm St. Clair
Cinematography: Elgin Lessley
Music: Lee Erwin
Cast: Buster Keaton (Blacksmith¿s Assistant), Joe Roberts (Blacksmith), Virginia Fox (Horsewoman).
BW-22m.

The Balloonatic:
Producer: Joseph M. Schenck
Director: Edward F. Cline, Buster Keaton
Screenplay: Edward F. Cline, Buster Keaton
Cinematography: Elgin Lessley
Cast: Buster Keaton, Phyllis Haver, Babe London
BW-27m.

by Roger Fristoe

* For more information about Buster Keaton, go to http://www.busterkeaton.com/Damfinos.htm