Steamboat Bill, Jr. is a 1928 silentcomedy film starring Buster Keaton. Released by United Artists, the film is the final product of Keaton's independent production team and set of gag writers.
The film was not a box-office success and became the last picture Keaton made for United Artists. Keaton ended up moving to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, where he made one last film in his trademark style, The Cameraman, before his creative control was taken away by the studio.
Charles Reisner directed the film, and the credited story writer was Carl Harbaugh. The film, named after Arthur Collins's popular 1911 recording of the 1910 song "Steamboat Bill", also featured Ernest Torrence, Marion Byron, and Tom Lewis. The film is known for what may be Keaton's most famous film stunt: The facade of a house falls around him while he stands in the precise location of an open window to avoid being flattened.
William "Steamboat Bill" Canfield is the owner and captain of a paddle steamer, the Stonewall Jackson, that has seen better days. The King, a new steamer owned by the rich J. J. King, threatens to steal his customers. Canfield receives a telegram saying his son is arriving on the 10am train, having finished his studies in Boston. Canfield has not seen him for many years.
King's daughter Kitty arrives home from college to visit him.
Canfield meets Bill Jr. at the train station, but is deeply disappointed with his slight, awkward son, who is wearing a foppish beret and has a pencil moustache and a ukulele. Canfield sends him to the barber to have the moustache removed, and there the young man bumps into Kitty, whom he knows from college.
Both Canfield and King are determined to break up the developing relationship between Bill Jr. and Kitty, but Bill Jr. slips off and boards the King at night. Canfield sees Bill Jr.'s clumsy and rebellious effort and buys him a ticket back to Boston. Kitty is angry at him for planning to leave and snubs him on the street.
When Canfield's ship is condemned as unsafe, he accuses King of orchestrating it. He assaults his enemy and is put in jail, prompting the son to tear up his train ticket. Bill Jr. makes a clumsy attempt to help his father escape, but ends up being knocked out by the sheriff and sent to the hospital.
A cyclone hits, demolishing buildings and endangering the ships. The hospital walls are torn away, leaving Bill Jr. exposed. As he makes his way through the town, a building front falls all around him as an unbroken facade, but Bill Jr. is untouched due to a fortunately placed open window. The jail is knocked off its foundations and starts to sink, with Canfield trapped inside. Bill Jr. rescues Kitty, Canfield, and King. Then he jumps into the water and comes back towing a minister in a lifebelt.
The original idea for the film came from Charlie Chaplin collaborator Charles Reisner, who was the director. Keaton, who had directed or co-directed many of his earlier films, was an uncredited co-director on this project.[1] In June 1927, he traveled to Sacramento, California, and spent over $100,000 building sets, including a pier. Original plans called for an ending with a flood sequence, but due to the devastating 1927 Mississippi River Flood, producer Joseph Schenck forced him to cut the arrangement.[1] Keaton also spent an additional $25,000 for the cyclone scene, which included breakaway street sets and six powerful Liberty-motor wind machines. The cyclone scene cost one-third of the film's entire budget, estimated at between $300,000 and $404,282.[2] Keaton, who planned and performed his own stunts himself, was suspended on a cable from a crane, which hurled him from place to place as if airborne.
Lobby card
Shooting began on July 15, 1927, in Sacramento. Production was delayed when Keaton broke his nose in a baseball game.
The film includes his most famous stunt: an entire building facade falling all around him. An open attic window fits neatly around Keaton's body as the structure falls, saving him from injury. He had performed a similar, though less elaborate, stunt in his earlier short films Back Stage (1919) and One Week (1920).[3] He used a genuine, two-ton building facade and no trickery. The mark on the ground showing Keaton exactly where to stand to avoid being crushed was a nail. It has been claimed that if he had stood just inches off the correct spot, he would have been seriously injured or killed.[4] His third wife, Eleanor, suggested that he took such risks due to despair over financial problems, his failing first marriage, the imminent loss of his filmmaking independence, and recklessness due to his worsening alcohol abuse at the time.[4] Evidence that Keaton was suicidal is scant—he was known throughout his career for performing dangerous stunts independent of any difficulties in his personal life, including a fall from a railroad water tower tube in 1924's Sherlock Jr. in which his neck was fractured.[5] He later said, "I was mad at the time, or I would never have done the thing." He also said that filming the shot was one of his greatest thrills.[6]
It is one of the few Keaton films to reference his fame. At the time of filming, he had stopped wearing his trademark pork pie hat with a short flat crown. During an early scene in which his character tries on a series of hats (something that was copied several times in other films), a clothing salesman briefly puts the trademark cap on his head, but he quickly rejects it, tossing it away.
At the end of shooting, Schenck announced the dissolution of Buster Keaton Productions.[3]
Reception
Steamboat Bill, Jr. was a box office failure[7] and received mixed reviews upon its release. Variety described the film as "a pip of a comedy" and "one of Keaton's best".[8] The reviewer from The Film Spectator appointed it "as perhaps the best comedy of the year thus far" and advised, "exhibitors should go after it".[9] A less enthusiastic review from Harrison's Reports stated, "there are many situations all the way through that cause laughs" while noting that "the plot is nonsensical".[10]Mordaunt Hall of the New York Times called the film a "gloomy comedy" and a "sorry affair".[11]
Over the years, Steamboat Bill, Jr. has become regarded as a masterpiece of its era. On Rotten Tomatoes 96% of critics have given the film a positive rating based on 52 reviews, with an average score of 9.00/10.[12] The film was included in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die.[13]
The famous falling house stunt has been re-created several times on film and television (although with lighter materials and more contemporary safety measures in place) including the 1975 The Goodies episode "The Movies", the 1991 MacGyver episode "Deadly Silents"; Jackie Chan's Project A Part II; the 2004 Arrested Development episode "The One Where They Build a House" (performed by the show's character named Buster); Al Yankovic's music video Amish Paradise (cross-referencing Peter Weir's 1985 film Witness); the 2006 comedy film Jackass Number Two; an Australian home insurance TV advertisement in 2021; and episode 7 in the first season of Lucha Underground, with a ladder.
Deadpan, a 1997 work by English film artist and director Steve McQueen, was also inspired by Steamboat Bill, Jr. McQueen stands in Keaton's place as a house facade falls over him. This film was shot from multiple angles, and the scene repeats over and over again while McQueen stands seemingly unaffected.[15]
George Miller's 1987 film The Witches of Eastwick references the scene where crates are blown all over Buster during the cyclone when Jack Nicholson gets debris (including boxes) blown over him in the windstorm sequence towards the end. The shot from the Keaton film is also seen in one of the multiple TVs in the media room in the final scene.
Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton was an American actor, comedian and filmmaker. He is best known for his silent film work, in which his trademark was physical comedy accompanied by a stoic, deadpan expression that earned him the nickname "The Great Stone Face".
The General is a 1926 American silent slapstick Western action comedy film released by United Artists. It was inspired by the Great Locomotive Chase, a true story of an event that occurred during the American Civil War. The story was adapted from the 1889 memoir The Great Locomotive Chase by William Pittenger. The film stars Buster Keaton, who also directed it along with Clyde Bruckman.
Sherlock Jr. is a 1924 American silent comedy film directed by and starring Buster Keaton and written by Clyde Bruckman, Jean Havez, and Joseph A. Mitchell. It features Kathryn McGuire, Joe Keaton, and Ward Crane.
Edward Francis Cline was an American screenwriter, actor, writer and director best known for his work with comedians W.C. Fields and Buster Keaton. He was born in Kenosha, Wisconsin and died in Hollywood, California.
Fractured Flickers is a live-action syndicated half-hour television comedy show that was produced by Jay Ward, who is otherwise known for cartoons. The pilot film was produced in 1961, but the series was not completed until 1963. Twenty-six episodes were produced; they were syndicated by Desilu Productions and played for several years on local stations.
One Week is a 1920 American two-reel silent comedy film starring Buster Keaton, the first independent film production he released on his own. The film was written and directed by Keaton and Edward F. Cline, and runs for 19 minutes. Sybil Seely co-stars. The film contains a large number of innovative visual gags largely pertaining to either the house or to ladders.
Ernest Torrence was a Scottish film character actor who appeared in many Hollywood films, including Broken Chains (1922) with Colleen Moore, Mantrap (1926) with Clara Bow and Fighting Caravans (1931) with Gary Cooper and Lili Damita. A towering figure, Torrence frequently played cold-eyed and imposing villains.
Our Hospitality is a 1923 American silent comedy film directed by Buster Keaton and John G. Blystone. Starring Keaton, Joe Roberts, and Natalie Talmadge and distributed by Metro Pictures Corporation, it uses slapstick and situational comedy to tell the story of Willie McKay, caught in the middle of the infamous "Canfield–McKay" feud, an obvious satire of the real-life Hatfield–McCoy feud.
The Navigator is a 1924 American comedy film directed by and starring Buster Keaton. The film was written by Clyde Bruckman and co-directed by Donald Crisp. In 2018, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."
The Cameraman is a 1928 American silent romantic comedy film directed by Edward Sedgwick and an uncredited Buster Keaton. The picture stars Keaton and Marceline Day.
Seven Chances is a 1925 American silent comedy film directed by and starring Buster Keaton, based on the play of the same name by Roi Cooper Megrue, produced in 1916 by David Belasco. Additional cast members include T. Roy Barnes, Snitz Edwards, and Ruth Dwyer. Jean Arthur, a future star, has an uncredited supporting role. The film's opening scenes were shot in early Technicolor.
Back Stage is a 1919 American two-reel silent comedy film directed by and starring Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle and featuring Buster Keaton and Al St. John.
Buster Keaton Rides Again is a 55-minute 1965 documentary film directed by John Spotton and narrated by Michael Kane. The film is a behind-the-scenes documentary shot while Buster Keaton's film The Railrodder (1965), was being produced. Although it is a production documentary, the film is actually longer than The Railrodder, which was only 24 minutes long. Both films were produced by the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). A French version of Buster Keaton Rides Again, Avec Buster Keaton was also released.
Charles Francis Reisner was an American film director and actor of the 1920s and 1930s.
Day Dreams is a 1922 American short comedy film directed by and featuring Buster Keaton. It is most famous for a scene where Keaton finds himself on the inside of a riverboat paddle wheel. It is a partially lost film and available from public domain sources.
Speak Easily is a 1932 American pre-Code comedy film starring Buster Keaton, Jimmy Durante, and Thelma Todd, and directed by Edward Sedgwick. The studio also paired Keaton and Durante as a comedy team during this period in The Passionate Plumber and What! No Beer? Keaton later used many of the physical gags he created for this film when he wrote (uncredited) gags for the Marx Brothers' A Night At The Opera.
Steamboat Willie is a 1928 American animated short film directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. It was produced in black and white by Walt Disney Studios and was released by Pat Powers, under the name of Celebrity Productions. The cartoon is considered the debut of both Mickey and Minnie Mouse, although both characters appeared several months earlier in a test screening of Plane Crazy. Steamboat Willie was the third of Mickey's films to be produced, but it was the first to be distributed, because Disney, having seen The Jazz Singer, had committed himself to produce one of the first fully synchronized sound cartoons.
Raymond Rohauer was an American film collector and distributor.
Elgin Lessley was an American hand-crank cameraman of the silent film era—a period of filmmaking when virtually all special effects work had to be produced inside the camera during filming. Though Lessley worked earlier with Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, and later with Harry Langdon, he is best known for the groundbreaking effects he produced with Buster Keaton, who dubbed him "the human metronome" for his ability to crank consistently at any requested speed.
Fred Gabourie was a technical director and department head.
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