Living It Like Buster

Something silly to share. I tend to play this when the stress gets too hot, and all I want is a simple smile.



The clip is from one of Buster Keaton's 1930s Educational Films shorts, called Grand Slam Opera. In retrospect, that random dance, with Buster switching styles whenever the unseen orchestra changes, means much more than just a gag.

When the silent film era suddenly ended in 1928, Keaton signed a contract with MGM, his first real studio. Until that point, Buster had worked as an independent, creating such classic silent comedies as The General, Sherlock Jr., and The Navigator. But The General--today considered one of the greatest films of all time--was a financial and critical flop when released in theaters. When Steamboat Bill Jr. also lost money, Keaton's producer Joseph Schenck convinced him to retreat to the security of MGM. The looming talkies worried many silent stars, and Keaton was in no position to take a risk.

Although the partnership initially produced another silent classic in The Cameraman, Buster soon discovered that MGM saw him as nothing but an employee. Buster never directed a feature again, nor did he have much input in the films in which he starred. By the time Keaton made his first sound film--the abysmal Free and Easy--he had become nothing but a square peg, forced into the round holes of "snappy" dialog-driven comedies, always portraying the dimwitted fool "Elmer," while the heroes of his silent classics had redeemed themselves with their ingenuity and tenacity. The complete loss of creativity, combined with his already-deteriorating home life, took away whatever joy he had left. He had already lost his wife's affection; now he lost his art. Buster essentially lived on the studio lot in a bungalow supplied by MGM, away from his beloved sons. His drinking escalated dangerously, to the point where he was finishing off a bottle of booze daily. In his last MGM film--What, No Beer?, the last of a trilogy of pairings with up-and-comer Jimmy Durante--Buster is embarrassingly inebriated, his eyes glazed and hollow, his words slurred, his once-sharp timing muddled. His wife had divorced him by then, taking everything but his paycheck. Soon he didn't even have that. Although Buster's sound films, in spite of their low quality, made more money than his landmark silents ever did, studio head Louis B. Mayer fired him on the final day of shooting.

That was January of 1933. Exactly five years after he had signed with one of the most successful Hollywood studios as one of the great comedians of film, Buster Keaton had nothing left.

The next couple of years probably should have killed Keaton. No major producing firm would hire him, and he bumbled into a second marriage to a nurse who probably did more harm than good. Several of his close friends died suddenly, including his mentor Roscoe Arbuckle, punching another hole in Keaton's life. In his last days, however, Arbuckle had worked with Educational Films, the cheapest studio in town, and now they offered Buster work. With the vaudeville stage fading and no where else to turn, Keaton took the job and began churning out extremely low-budget, sound two-reelers. But his alcoholism got worse.

In the middle of October 1935, with his second marriage sliding toward divorce, Keaton began drinking heavily and wouldn't stop. An old family friend, Dr. John Shuman, took him to a hospital while Buster was unconscious. The next morning, Keaton's alcoholic withdrawal was so great that he was restrained in a straitjacket. He stayed in the hospital for two weeks. Shuman and other doctors explained to Buster how the drinking was killing him, and if he continued, he wouldn't live much longer.

According to Tom Dardis's Keaton: The Man Who Wouldn't Lie Down, "Buster listened calmly and did not drink for the next five years."

Keaton returned to Educational Films sober and anew. Grand Slam Opera was the second short he made after his hospital stay, and it's the only one in which Buster has a writing credit. His timing, his energy, his creativity...in a bargain basement short, mostly lost to time and memory, Keaton's joy in creation is completely alive on screen.

Educational Films would go bankrupt the following year, but Keaton would find more work back at MGM, as an anonymous gag writer. He gave away his famous routines to the likes of the Marx Brothers, Abbott and Costello, and Red Skelton, who remade Keaton's two MGM silents as sound films, but did them Buster's way. Most importantly, Buster Keaton would meet Eleanor Norris, a young dancer at the studio. Despite the differences in their ages, the two would marry in May 1940, and would live happily together until the end of Buster's life 25 years later. By then, audiences had rediscovered Keaton's silent features and shorts, and Keaton lived the last years of his life recognized as one of the giants of comedy.

Buster's Educational Films work mostly has been forgotten, and those who have seen the shorts call them "shoddy," "beneath Keaton," and "embarrassingly bad." But the 16 two-reelers Keaton made over those three years perhaps are among the most important of his life--they gave him work when he needed it, and when he was ready, allowed him to unearth the talent he nearly destroyed with the bottle. Few of us have traveled the road that Buster Keaton did, and for a time, that road was hopelessly perilous. Like the heroes he conjured for his silents, Keaton never gave in, despite the despair and melancholy that wrapped his existance. Even when hope left him, he continued on. When I watch that clip, made so soon after the darkest time of his life, I remember Keaton's dance lesson.

Swinging on the devil's dance floor? Buster did, and survived. And he's still dancing.