Ever seen it?
Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin doing a musical duet!
Buster was unknown for years before, working in Mexico doing shows, and an Italian found him toiling in relative obscurity, brought him to Italy and screened his movies with him performing live... at least that's the tale as I heard it...
Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin doing a musical duet!
Buster was unknown for years before, working in Mexico doing shows, and an Italian found him toiling in relative obscurity, brought him to Italy and screened his movies with him performing live... at least that's the tale as I heard it...
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SF Bay Area
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Re: Limelight
Thu, April 22, 2004 - 10:47 PMI hadn't heard the Mexico stories.
I've seen Limelight, though. It was a real shock to hear Buster's voice. That was the first Buster "talkie" I ever saw. -
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Re: Limelight
Sat, April 24, 2004 - 9:09 PMI believe it's the only one...
Anyone else know differently? -
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Re: Limelight
Sun, April 25, 2004 - 5:12 AMI thought Buster did a couple talking films back when he was demoted to being Jimmy Durante's second banana. -
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Re: Limelight
Sat, May 29, 2004 - 3:56 AMBuster did appear in a bunch of talkies in the 1930s and 40s-- but had slipped into obscurity by the time Chaplin decided to cast him in _Limelight_. Buster did a number of films after that and also had his own television show for a while. -
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Re: Limelight
Tue, June 1, 2004 - 12:15 PMSight & Sound did a write-up of Buster's TV work within the last few years. They may have that article archived online. I was surprised at how active he was long after the silent era. -
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Re: Limelight
Tue, June 1, 2004 - 1:19 PMI was just trying to remember if any of that subsequent work featured him talking. And I think the Durante films did, but I'm not sure. -
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Re: Limelight
Wed, June 2, 2004 - 9:24 AMI looked up the Sight & Sound article online. I found a little more information about it, but unfortunately S&S doesn't provide the actual article onlone:
April 2000
DEADPAN AFTERLIFE
Buster Keaton, one of the great comedians of the silent era, did some of his best dramatic and comic work for television in the 50s and 60s. David Weddle looks at these rare, archived treasures.
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Re: Limelight
Wed, March 16, 2005 - 4:28 AMBuster ceased to be a big star, but he was too talented, and had too much of a work ethic to stop working. When MGM let him go as an actor, they kept him on as a gag writer. He did stage work, character acting, and gag writing, until his rediscovery. He even served as a gag consultant for the "I Love Lucy" show and helped Red Skelton recreate the gags and stunts in the almost frame by frame remakes of both "The Cameraman" and "Spite Marriage"-- the best of his two MGM features.
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Re: Limelight
Wed, March 16, 2005 - 12:48 AMBuster was in lots of talkies from about 1930 on. His voice wasn't the problem so much as MGM's messing with his character and giving him bad material. I think his frist talkie was Free and Easy in which they turned him into a sad Chaplinesque clown, however it does feature a beautiful film within a film sequence in which he does a balletic dance while portraying a Pierrotish marionette king. -
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Re: Free & Easy
Wed, March 16, 2005 - 4:19 AMYes, Free & Easy is Buster's first talkie. It was also the first time that they constrained him to the role of being merely an actor, instead of the dominant creative force behind all his films. The story is pretty formulaic about the guy who comes to big city and without intending it becomes a big star-- with a love triangle as a B-plot. However, the film within a film sequence is brilliant, unlike anything Buster had done before and worth seeing over and over and over again (definitely worth having on DVD just for that.) There is also a fun sequence when he first wanders onto the film lot-- but the rest of the film is slow moving filler.
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Re: Limelight
Wed, March 16, 2005 - 1:12 AMBuster had bouts with severe alcoholism in the early to middle 30's after which he did a series of mostly uninspired two reelers, so called educational pictures, and worked as a gag consultant for the Marx Brothers and Red Skelton, among others. At the end of WWII he was invited by the Cirque Medrano and spent several months performing live in Paris, London and elsewhere to great acclaim. When he came back he got work on some of the earliest tv shows, such as the one hosted by Ed Wynn.
The Mexican reference may be to a film he made in the mid 40's called Boom in the Moon, which is actually pretty funny.
The Italian screenings weren't until the 60's so far as I know. The rediscovery of his early genius is owed to a somewhat sleazy fellow named Rohauer who befriended Keaton and convinced him against his own indifference to the past, to compile all his silent films and transfer them to safety stock. Had he not done that the nitrate would have disintegrated and most of his work would have been lost like the majority of silent film including those of Buster's once enormously famous, former sisters-in-law, Norma and Constance Talmadge.
BTW Buster's relation to the Talmadges is recreated in My Wife's Relations where he makes the sisters big bruising brothers.
