Reviews by JxSxPx

An anthropomorphic adaptation of the classic English legend, Robin Hood plays fast and loose in retelling this well-known story, even by the already loose standards of Disney. In fact, the film spends more time with Prince John and Sir Hiss, a pair of effete bitchy gay-coded villains that are more amusing than dangerous, than it does with the titular hero. When it does focus in on Robin Hood and his Merry Men, the film zips by with an energy and spritely demeanor that is refreshing, yet it still can’t cover up the numerous deficiencies in animation and narrative.

Perhaps it’s appropriate that the characters in Robin Hood come the closest to looking dirty and dingy. Much of the animation hasn’t been cleaned up, and everyone looks hairy and matted. It was distracting for the aristocratic matriarch of The Aristocats, but works much better here. I guess since the film seems tailored so heavily towards the Summer of Love generation, this dirtiness and sub-par animation plays as charming. Shame the studio never tackled this tale during, say, the Silver Era or the Renaissance and produced some truly beautiful images to go along with it.

Or even a decent villain, as so many memorable Disney films are made on the strengths of their villains. Peter Ustinov’s preening, thumb-sucking cry-baby Prince John is funny, but he’s never a real threat. Ustinov’s rolling vowels and clipped tones given more life to the character than the uninspired animation or plot mechanics. In fact, there’s never much at stake, no sense of menace or danger in Robin Hood. The closest we get to a real bad guy is the Sherriff of Nottingham, who sounds like a southern Confederate that’s wandered into the British countryside. Granted, Prince John is entertaining, but his queer bitchiness can’t come within spitting distance of the drag queen melodramatics of Aladdin’s Jafar or The Lion King’s Scar.

I know this version of the story has its ardent defenders, but I’ve never been one of them. The disjointed narrative simply moves from one Saturday-morning cartoon scenario to another, never developing its characters beyond bland-but-noble heroics or prissy villainy. There’s a very strong missed opportunity here to re-energize the myth, and the film had the most potential of any of the various classical adaptations in the Bronze Era to be something truly special. What emerged was a mostly average action-adventure film with a fox shooting arrows at a lion, a wolf, and a python. Admittedly, this is a lackadaisical diversion.

With the death of Walt Disney the animation studio was left adrift and quickly churned out this piece of product to keep things afloat. Pieced together from disparate parts of various older films, The Aristocats doesn’t have much going on between the ears. It sure is cute, though.

There’s just not much here to recommend. Everything was done already in Lady and the Tramp, or 101 Dalmatians, or any number of shorts starring adorable talking animals. No character is memorable, and the animation is frequently rough, bordering on ugly more than once. Despite only being about 80 minutes, The Aristocats never quite finds a successful footing.

The story is about a wealthy former opera singer who plans on leaving her vast fortune to her beloved pet cats, much to the chagrin of her long-suffering butler. Her butler plans on removing the cats from the equation, but not with the delicious villainy of, say, Cruella De Vil, but by dropping them off in the farmland outside of Paris. Edgar the butler is not a memorable or engaging villain, in fact, he’s more of a pitiable character of slapstick and middling development.

Only two things about The Aristocats truly stand out, the song “Everybody Wants to be a Cat” and some of the vocal work, mostly the sophisticated tones of Eva Gabor. Granted, even “Everybody Wants to be a Cat” is not without its problems. Disney has long had a complicated history with racial caricatures in its films, and seeing the ensemble of stereotypes on display is unnerving. Aside from these two things, The Aristocats is the sight of Disney spinning its wheels wondering where to take the brand and creativity of the studio without the patriarch. 

Finally, as we reach the end of the package years, Disney produces a classic. The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad combines two disparate literary adaptations, both originally intended to be expanded into features, with a solidly imagined wraparound segment to tie them together. By copying the formula from Fun and Fancy Free, Disney was able to make two completely solid shorts that are highly enjoyable on their own, and surprisingly work well together.

In their own ways, both of the stories contained here are morality plays. The Wind in the Willows, the Mr. Toad section of the title, tries to teach its hero a lesson in slowing down and thinking before acting, to questionable success. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow punishes Ichabod Crane for purposefully trying to swindle and gold-dig into a marriage with a wealthy land heiress. That’s about it for the similarities.

Basil Rathbone narrates The Wind in the Willows, and this short works exceptionally well for the economy in which it burns through the original story. Granted, like many Disney films, it plays fast and loose with the material. The Wind in the Willows tells the story of Mr. Toad and his close friends who must constantly keep a close eye on him and clean up his many messes. Mr. Toad is also a bit of a bored upper class individual who must blindly and mindlessly buy the latest gadget to demonstrate his status and provide a few minutes entertainment before zipping off to his newest obsession. There's a timely and timeless element to a story of a crassly spending character, bankruptcy and foreclosure. It probably will go over the heads of many children, but for the adults there's something smarter going on in this one.

But it's still one of the better shorts to come out the 1940s package films that the studio turned out. It features the watercolor backgrounds of the Golden Era, and the solid character animation that the Disney studio did so well. It’s easy to see where the plot could be expand to spin the narrative out to feature-length, as was originally intended. While it would have been a charming feature, it’s pretty perfect in its thirty-five minute incarnation.

In contrast, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is narrated and sung by Bing Crosby, who excels here, and done in a more angular style. Naturally, Mary Blair provides the backgrounds for this short. All warm, autumnal colors, rounded geometric shapes, and equally severe characters, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is every bit as lovely to behold as the prior segment, contrasting that pastoral England for a lively colonial Americana. Crosby’s sleepy voice is perfect for Ichabod, and the title character bares a passing resemblance to the crooner.

Much like the original story, this version is mostly a pastoral story of a schoolteacher trying to marry rich before the climax diverts over into supernatural and horror territory. The Headless Horseman is all inky blacks with large blocky bits of blues or purples as highlights. This segment is probably the most famous piece of animation from the short, even though it only occupies the last five minutes or so. It really is that memorable and well done to justify its omnipresence.

After The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, Disney would return to single-narrative feature films. While numerous other package films contained moments of greatness, Disney spirited itself for its final release of the era and crafted a truly great film. Not a moment is wasted, nor is anything too bloated. It’s no wonder that this film and Fun and Fancy Free have been paired together recently for home video release, they’re the only two films in the entire era that Disney seems proud of. With good reason, among the four segments across the two films, three of them can claim full-on classic status.

Without a doubt, this is the weakest film in the package years. There is no high that’s very high, or low that is very low, no great sequence that dashes away from the rest of the pack. It’s a mediocre ensemble of seven different shorts. The problem with the film is spelled out clearly in the opening, in which a group of dramatic masks detail that what we’re about to watch has something for everybody. Melody Time tries to please every audience imaginable, and, in the end, it only mildly accomplishes this goal.

Only the “Johnny Appleseed” and “Pecos Bill” segments have proven their legs. I don’t find either of them to be incredible, but they’re serviceable. “Johnny Appleseed” has gorgeous background designs from Mary Blair, truly one of the treasures of this decade who would go on to influence numerous films in the Silver Era. Yet that story’s hard reliance upon pro-settler views, mixed in with a heavy dose of Christianity, kept me at arm’s length from it. 

While “Pecos Bill” highlights the biggest asshole cowboy imaginable, but presents him as a noble hero. “Pecos Bill” is most enjoyable for the wraparound segment featuring Roy Rogers, his horse Trigger, and child actors Luana Patten and Bobby Driscoll sitting around a campfire regaling the story.

Other shorts are slight, filled with technical expertise, but enjoyable. “Little Toot,” featuring outstanding vocal work from the Andrews Sisters, tells the story of a naughty little tugboat that learns a valuable lesson in patience and hard-work. “Bumble Boogie” is an explosion of color, experimental imagery, and a jazz interpretation of “Flight of the Bumblebee” by Rimsky-Korsakov. The only problem with it is the short length, as it ends just as it’s beginning to gain its footing and explode with energy.

“Blame It on the Samba” plays like a leftover from The Three Caballeros or Saludos Amigos. It’s always nice to see José Carioca and the Aracuan Bird, even if the latter plays like a hybrid of Woody Woodpecker and the Dodo from the Looney Tunes. Like the earlier films, this segment combines live-action footage, this time with Ethel Smith playing the organ, with animation. While it doesn’t reach the dizzying heights of various segments of those prior films, it does play like some of the solid, lesser moments.

“Trees” and “Once Upon a Wintertime” are beautiful to look at, but dull. Once again, Mary Blair’s scenery is a thing of beauty to get lost in, all strong curves and geometric cutouts in bold colors. Shame better stories couldn’t have been drafted to go along with the lovely colors and fluid animation. 

Like the rest of the films during the 40s, Melody Time is not without its charms or moments. But these moments are missing the heart and grace of the prior Golden Era, or the memorable anarchy of the Silver Era. You can clearly see the studio burning off the old ideas, strengthening its muscles, and trying to reawaken from its long slumber. It doesn’t make for entirely compelling viewing, but it’s diverting.

The closest thing I have encountered to a classic film in Disney’s package years, Fun and Fancy Free leans hard on the first word of that title, and is all the better for it. There’s a stronger sense of connection between the two shorts, and with only two different short films to tie together, the creators were able to give more time, care, and thought to crafting stronger cartoons. Fun and Fancy Free may not be an all-time great in the Disney canon, but it’s an entertaining way to spend seventy-some minutes.

The wraparound story finds Jiminy Cricket strumming his ukele and singing, stumbling upon some dolls and a record player. The record player just so happens to have “Bongo” ready to go, and narrated by Dinah Shore, after that short, Jiminy finds an invitation to a party at Edgar Bergen’s house for Luana Patten. He goes across the street to the party, and listens as Bergen tells Luana the story of “Mickey and the Beanstalk.” It’s a clever enough premise and works well, and it’s nice to reacquaint ourselves with Jiminy, who was the major beloved company mascot prior to Tinkerbell’s prominence.

The two shorts are well done, although for a variety of reasons “Mickey and the Beanstalk” is infinitely better. “Bongo” is a cute enough diversion, but it feels stuffed with too much padding and unnecessary bits. It’s hard to believe that this was once considered as a stand-alone feature before WWII and the animator’s strike hit the studio hard. There’s just not enough story to satisfactorily fill out the half hour, and the majority of musical numbers in Fun and Fancy Free occur during this segment. “Bongo” is cute, but that’s about all it is. On the plus side, Dinah Shore’s narration sounds like the coziest bedtime story the studio ever produced.

“Mickey and the Beanstalk” is the real reason to seek out Fun and Fancy Free. Long considered one of the most beloved Mickey and the gang cartoons, “Beanstalk” is a classic piece of animation. Bergen’s narration frequently interacts with the plot, setting up various punch lines and gags. This is a major boost to its overall effectiveness. Most of the package films featured narration that simply recited verbatim what was happening in the animation without commenting or interacting with it.

And that’s just the beginning, while “Bongo” felt too padded out with incident, “Mickey and the Beanstalk” moves through its story with an energetic pace. Not one second of story-telling is wasted on a musical number to fill out the running time, or a series of gags to extended a chase scene. Everything here is vital and live. No scene more than the overnight beanstalk growth, which finds Mickey, Donald, and Goofy sleeping through the destruction of their house and luckily happening upon leaves and growths which safely catch and cradle them. It’s one of the best pieces of animation from this era.

Taken as a whole, this is an immensely satisfying film from beginning to end. While these two sections were burnt off as a way to revitalize the studio in preparation for their grand return to form with Cinderella, Fun and Fancy Free is looser and more entertaining than that embalmed and too tasteful film. It’s slight, but also the closest thing to an essential viewing experience from this era in the studio’s output.

Make Mine Music is a pop music version of Fantasia, composed of ten segments with the era’s popular musicians contributing to the soundtrack. Nothing here comes even has as close to Fantasia’s artistic daring and boundary-pushing bravado, but plenty of it is particularly charming and entertaining.

In its current form, Make Mine Music is edited down from its premiere. The opening segment was removed from all North American home video releases due to the graphic nature of its violence. In order to watch it, you’ll have to dig around. Having watched it, I think the censor of the short, called “The Martins and McCoys,” is an overreaction. The gun violence is no more eccentric and anarchic than what you would find in a Looney Tunes short, and it frankly plays like a sub-par Tex Avery cartoon.

While most of Make Mine Music works and is highly entertaining, the various ballads are a bit of slog to get through. “Blue Bayou,” “Two Silhouettes,” and “Without You” are the typically embalmed and glossy Disney animation that sparkles with technical proficiency and lacks any heart or emotion.

Everything else works much better. These six remaining shorts are a collection of terrific character animation and whimsy. The Benny Goodman Orchestra provides the soundtrack to two charmers, “All the Cats Join In,” a swinging look at 40s teenagers, and “After You’ve Gone,” which features eight instruments springing to life and dancing around an impressionistic wonderland. They’re more artistically daring and unique than the rest of the shorts, and I just wish that “After You’ve Gone” in particular was longer.

“Jonnie Fedora and Alice Bluebonnet” and “Casey at the Bat” are memorable bits of character animation. “Johnnie” being a love story between the two title characters, sung by the Andrews Sisters, which makes you invest in and care about the relationship between two inanimate objects. “Casey at the Bat” visualizes by the famous poem by Ernest Thayer and is narrated by Jerry Colonna. The variation of body types and personalities on display is a miniature look at the Disney animators doing what they do best, crafting unique personalities and animating towards that.

By far the most famous short from this is “Peter and the Wolf.” Personally, I could have done without Sterling Holloway’s narration after the opening, which introduces the various musical instruments and visualizes the parts that they represent. I found his narration to be a repetitive element for a story that was clearly and effectively told through character animation and pantomime.  

But the most enjoyable might be the last entry, “The Whale Who Wanted to Sing at the Met.” It finds an equal amount of pathos and comedy in its story, and presents an endearing and original character in Willy the singing sperm whale. A sperm whale in various famous Opera costumes is humorous enough, but add in a mistaken impresario who hunts down Willy, a seagull sidekick, and three goofy crewman, and the rough materials are all in place for a solid short. The unexpectedly dark conclusion is a nice swerve, and ends the film on a satisfying note.

If you ever wondered how much Disney cares about most of the films from this era, just look at how beat-up and dirty this print is. Specks, scratches, and dirt are all over it. I’m not sure why Disney let this film fall into such rough shape, there’s a lot of charm on display here. Granted, as a whole Make Mine Music is only mildly satisfying, but individual moments linger and hit hard.

An improvement over Saludos Amigos, but only barely, The Three Caballeros plays less like its own film and more like an extension of the previous one. I don’t mean that it plays like a sequel, I mean that it plays like the leftover story ideas that didn’t make it into the first film shoved together to make this one.

There’s another wrap-around segment, this time it’s Donald Duck celebrating his birthday and opening presents from his friends in Latin America. It works well enough, and a few of the segments actually improve upon my problems with the prior film in that they’re more engaged with various cultures. There’s also less of an inclination to make the segments strict narratives, and the best ones are actually the surreal, expressionistic ones that abandon a story in favor of eye-popping colors and experimental animation.

There’s seven segments this time, so let’s start by talking about the ones that don’t work as well. “The Cold-Blooded Penguin” narrated by Sterling Holloway is about a little Antarctic penguin who dreams of living in warmer climates. It’s too cutesy for words, and doesn’t engage enough with any particular culture, treating Latin America as an idealized exotic land. “Las Posadas” features great artwork from Mary Blair, but why they decided to highlight a Christmas tradition instead of unleashing their immense talents on a Mexican myth is odd. A flying sarape tour of Mexico displays Donald as a horny aggressor towards a group of spicy senoritas, and it’s exactly as questionable as it sounds.

There’s a cute segment called “The Flying Gauchito” about a little boy in Uruguay who discovers a flying donkey that straddles the line. I think fall harder on the enjoyment side of things than on finding it questionable. I just find that it times it rests too hard on technical skill, and not enough on creating something more memorable.

Everything else works much better. The best moment once again belongs to José Carioca and a surreal tour with Brazil. This time we explore the city of Bahía, starting off with a Mary Blair wonderland and ending with an extended musical sequence involving Aurora Miranda. It’s charming, vibrant, and whimsical, and exactly the kind of thing that these films needed more of.

The introduction of Panchito Pistoles, a Mexican rooster, brings about some of the better moments as well. “The Three Caballeros” musical number is quick-paced and has a free hand with the visual gags. It’s charming from beginning to end. Same thing happens with Panchito and José goof around with Donald and a piñata. The explosions of colors and shapes shows the Disney animators playing around in a looser way that recalls moments from Dumbo or Fantasia. “You Belong to My Heart” and “Donald’s Surreal Reverie” are equally fantastic, and if The Three Caballeros had more segments like this I would easily classify it as an unheralded masterpiece of the Disney canon.

Less a movie than a series of cutesy vignettes, these add up to something close to a travelogue, but not a very good one. Granted, with the power and artistry of the Disney animation branch behind it even the lesser moments are extremely well done. The intention of the film was to bolster friendly relations between the Allies and Latin American, but Saludos Amigos (Hello Friends, in English) is actually more interesting for revealing the artistic process involved in making a Disney feature or short.

The live-action footage of the creative minds of Disney traveling across Latin America, producing preliminary ideas and production designs, even seeing the evolution of certain characters from rough sketches to fleshed out creations is engaging and interesting. There’s a solid documentary short to be made from these materials. But the film keeps going, introducing various locales with documentary footage, narration, and then an animated sequence based on what they witnessed. While this isn’t bad in theory, in practice it comes across as muddled and confusing.

The vastness of Latin American, namely Brazil, Peru, and Argentina, is condensed into a 42 minute feature. One of which actually engages with the mythology, colors, and flavor of the locale in any meaningful way. The prior two segments are too cutesy, bordering on condescension. Donald Duck traveling through Lake Titicaca is a fine enough premise, but instead of actively involving him in learning about the culture, the creators preferred to have him fight it out with a stubborn llama. It feels like a wasted opportunity. Same goes for an extended segment that has Goofy as a transplanted Texas cowboy learning to be a gaucho in Argentina, which feels like it’s taking the piss out of the customs and dances of the culture instead of embracing or celebrating them.

Odder still is the choice to represent Chile in the form of a mail-carrying airplane. The most interesting moments are when we’re introduced to figures from Chilean mythology, but they’re too quickly glossed over or insufficiently engaged with. A better short would have seen the Disney animators taking the time and care they’ve given to numerous European tales and creating a memorable spin on an Chilean one.

Saludos Amigos perks up greatly once we land in Brazil. Finally, the creators have done what I believe was the goal the entire time, merged the Disney brand with the flavors of the country they’re engaging with into something special. We return to Donald Duck, but this time he meets a Brazilian parrot named José Carioca. This short is the most experimental and vivid. Saludos Amigos had threatened to become sleepy and too formulaic before this climax. This segment, called “Aquarela do Brasil” (“Watercolor of Brazil” in English), is one of the great underrated and undervalued masterpieces of the Disney animation catalog.  

Like many short film collections, Saludos Amigos is hit-and-miss. There’s nothing truly terrible here, but a lot of it is underwhelming. It’s only when they let loose with the crazy, surrealistic images and break free from a concentrated narrative structure that the film really begins to breathe. We could have used more segments like the Brazilian climax or the behind-the-scenes footage, and less of the well-known Disney characters wrecking havoc in South America.

Guillermo del Toro turns his directorial vision away from laying the groundwork for a mega-franchise back towards a smaller story, this time a homage to Gothic romance. Based on premise alone, you could have counted me in. Thrown in that cast, creepy supernatural elements, and stellar production design, and I’m beyond sold. Crimson Peak is definitely one of my favorite films of2015.

Throughout Crimson Peak, a haunted air of repression and delusion hovers over the characters. This begins from the earliest scenes, which detail Edith’s first brush with ghosts as a young child. The spirit of her mother comes to her with a simple warning, “Beware of Crimson Peak.” We flash-forward, and Edith (Mia Wasikowska) is now a grown woman, a proto-feminist with aspirations of being a Mary Shelley-style writer. Her oddities mocked and derided by other members of New York society, these early scenes play like The Age of Innocence cranked to 11 and a splash of gore and bloodletting thrown in.

Soon, a handsome British baronet (Tom Hiddleston) on the hunt for a wealthy, but expendable, heiress crosses paths with Edith. His sister (Jessica Chastain) hovers in the background, mostly delivering menacing scowls and clenching her jaw, and Edith’s father (Jim Beaver) disapproves of the entire endeavor. It isn’t long before something happens that frees up Edith to runaway with her handsome suitor and travel to the barren countryside with the siblings, but not before one last warning from the ghost of her mother. Edith should have listened to her mother, as the siblings live on a plot of land dubbed Crimson Peak by the locals for the way the red clay bleeds through the floorboards and snow.

Everything that makes a Gothic romance novel can be found here, and delivered with an eccentric flourish. Guillermo del Toro makes films that are more like extended love letters to his obsessions, he less of a director and more of a madman conjuring up poetic hallucinations to play before your eyes. Crimson Peak owes as much to Edgar Allen Poe as it does the films of Mario Bava and Hammer Studios.

As I mentioned, there’s a haunted nature to the film, with repressed secrets, emotions and dreams weighing over the characters heads. The brother and sister are clearly stunted and twisted individuals, and as the film spirals towards some inevitable and disturbed reveals, the suppression and delusion that has haunted them begins to speak to Edith. Quite literally, as their dead mother warns Edith to be wary of them, and to flee. Other ghosts materialize, and with them more secrets are revealed. We begin to almost pity the emotionally damaged siblings as their monstrous nature is explained, but never forgiven.

I never said the film was subtle, and the melodramatic plot points do threaten to collapse the whole thing, but everyone is committed. Hiddleston does fine work, but Wasikowska and Chastain easily outshine him. Hiddleston's greatest performances use his aristocratic carriage and handsome looks to mask a smarmy or sleazy core. This aspect of him is used to maximum effect, and he essays his character's journey with ease. But the girls get the better parts. Edith may be virginal and naïve in some aspects, but she’s smart, resourceful, inquisitive and brave. It’s refreshing to see a character like hers that could so easily be turned into a hapless damsel-in-distress but never actually does.

Crimson Peak belongs to Chastain, in some way varied ways. The house and her character are a part of the long tradition of Gothic literature in which the two are intertwined and symbolic of each other. She is its primary keeper, yet she is also entombed by it. The specters of the house and its various problems are hers, and Chastain goes full-throttle into her villainess. If I had my way, she’d finally get the Oscar for her scenery-chewing sociopathic noblewoman. Her character is alternately the most pitiable and scary, a recognizable victim of abuse and neglect that turned those scars inward and outward, repeating the cycles of abuse on herself and anyone that comes within her circle.

What I most adore about del Toro’s fantasies is how they locate themselves within a recognizable world, and don’t stick the darkness, war, and gore on the outskirts. Pan’s Labyrinth and The Devil’s Backbone confront these images and themes head-on, and Crimson Peak indulges the fantastical as much as those films, but also presents a clearly recognizable proxy for our real world. There’s no pure escapism in his fairy tales and ghost stories, and if they lack subtlety in their metaphors and imagery, I can easily forgive it. At his best, he makes art films which include these various interests as springboards for ornate costuming, beautiful and disturbing imagery, and great performances. 

No image greater summarizes the artistry of Buster Keaton than his placid, immobile face and body language as the front of a house falls on top of him. The Great Stone Face was as much a character as Chaplin’ Little Tramp, but while the Tramp demanded a lovability and graceful physicality, Keaton’s character was a harder, colder individual. Possessing a greater sense of daring, adventure, and thumb-biting at death-defying stunts than Douglas Fairbanks, Keaton may have been the best artist of the silent era.

No one else could, or would even dare to, do what he accomplished in his series of films. From the waterfall leap in Our Hospitality to the immaculate timing required to remove logs on the tracks in The General or the water basin gag that ending up fracturing his neck in Sherlock Jr., Keaton was clearly a madman giving it all up there on the screen. But I mean that with sincere admiration and love. What he performs onscreen appears like an invitation to death, all without the aid of CGI or elaborate post-production techniques. When a house nearly falls on Keaton, it all happened in real-time.

His films have more going on than spectacle. Keaton was a primary architect of his work, frequently performing uncredited directorial duties or rewrites on his scripts. Steamboat Bill, Jr. expands beyond his normal Stone Face routine, having Keaton appear first as something of a dandy before evolving into a tougher character.

The story concerns the reunion of a father and son, a love story (which feels like a last-minute thrown-in piece in comparison to the central romances of other films), and Keaton battling it out with natural forces. All of the great material is there, and much of it plays smoothly and with great efficiency, even if a slight hint of spark is missing. Steamboat Bill, Jr. is essential Keaton, but it feels like the fifth entry in a Top 5 slot. Except for the last fifteen minutes, which just obliterates the screen and threatens to take the theater with it.

Much of the preceding elements of Steamboat Bill. Jr. have a faint hint of occupying time for that marvelous special effects-ridden finale. The forbidden romance is there, but doesn’t play out with the frantic earnestness of Our Hospitality or with the goofy, sweet charm of the hapless hero of Seven Chances, it’s just there. Infinitely superior are the father-son dynamics, and many of these early cultural clashes, in which Keaton’s educated son comes into stark conflict with his blue collar father, are miniature gems. A scene in which they try on hats is amusing, and makes us miss Keaton’s pork pie hat all the more, but even better is one in which Keaton tries to smuggle a hacksaw in a pie to his jailbird dad. The comedic roundabout that ensues, with Keaton’s lovably oblivious hero, is a great bit of purely physical comedy and sight-gags.

Sadly, right after this, Keaton would make what he called his biggest mistake by signing on with MGM. After losing his artistic autonomy, his films sank into weird forms. They made money, but they lost his specific artistic voice and values. He continued to work consistently, but never with anything as remotely endearing, engaging, or marvelous as the string of films he made between 1920 –1929. But if we end the Keaton legend with Steamboat Bill, Jr. what a way to go out!