THE PASSIONATE PLUMBER
US, 1932, 73 minutes. Black and white.
Buster Keaton, Jimmy Durante, Irene Purcell, Polly Moran, Gilbert Roland, Maude Eburne, Mona Maris.
Directed by Edward Sedgwick.
For some The Passionate Plumber is a comic masterpiece for Buster Keaton. For others, it is a total failure and marks the beginning of Buster Keaton’s fall in career, never reaching the heights of his silent period.
The Passionate Plumber is rather hard going for audiences watching a 1930s film that harks back to the silent era, has only average sound engineering, has rather stilted and stagey performances. Buster Keaton has his sympathetic role and does some pratfalls but is involved in the drama where his friend (played by Jimmy Durante in his extroverted, all-out style), Buster Keaton excels visually but is hampered by his screen speaking voice which makes him just like any other actor and not the stand-out that he was when people simply looked at him and enjoyed his mimes and pratfalls.
The plot is very corny. It is set in Paris, Jimmy Durante plays a chauffeur. Buster Keaton portrays a plumber. Durante urges him to fix the shower in the apartment owned by Patricia. She is infatuated with playboy Tony (played with some aplomb by Gilbert Roland) who alleges he is married to Nina. Later we see him playing the same game and claiming he is married to Patricia. In the meantime, there is comedy in the shower (an expected drenching), a somewhat daring for 1932 episode where Buster Keaton is challenged to a duel by Gilbert Roland and uses his towel rather than his glove. The duel theme continues throughout the film, a parody of duel sequences, Keaton slapping everybody that he comes in contact with with a glove. He also wants to sell a patent to a French general, a gun that he has invented with a range light. First barred from going into a reception, he pretends to be a drunk where the casino puts money in the pockets of the drunks so that they won’t be considered suicides because of gambling. When he tries to demonstrate the gun, it is interpreted as an assassination attempt. In the meantime, he makes a contract with Patricia that he will pretend to be in love with her to foil Tony. The expected consequences ensue, the two women eventually meet, Buster Keaton in the middle, Gilbert Roland shown up for the cad that he is, a happy ending with the heroine – a very sudden one.
Keaton had excelled in silent films like The General. In the following years till his death in 1966, he appeared in a number of small-budget films, some films at MGM, quite a lot of television, and in the 60s such films as Beach Blanket Bingo, although he did achieve something towards the end of his life in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.
For Keaton fans to study – and for those who are interested in the changing comic styles from the silent era to the sound era.
