Buster Keaton: So Funny It Hurt!

Silent comic Buster Keaton's successes and struggles to fulfill his own Hollywood dream are expertly depicted in a new, original documentary by legendary filmmaker Kevin Brownlow, So Funny It Hurt: Buster Keaton and MGM (2004). The documentary chronicles the comedian's MGM period, and features fascinating rare footage, including archival interviews with the master himself. Keaton colleague and friend James Karen narrates.

Considered by many to be cinema's greatest silent clown, Buster Keaton was a consummate practitioner of physical comedy, whose career in vaudeville with his father began at the age of three. 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. What many forget is that his life as an MGM star lasted just five short years - years marked by artistic compromise with the studio, relationship and money troubles as well as a growing problem with alcohol. Despite these challenges, his genius lived on after his on-screen career. He still worked at the studio for some time recycling his on-screen gags and writing new material for the likes of Red Skelton and the Marx Brothers. Side-by-side comparisons of scenes from Keaton silents next to Skelton or Marx Brothers talkies are nearly identical as So Funny It Hurt shows.

C & BW-39m. Closed captioning.