THE CAMERAMAN
US, 1928, 69 minutes, Black-and-white.
Buster Keaton, Marceline Day.
Directed by Edward Sedgwick.
Buster Keaton had proven himself an expert comedian, po- faced, sometimes sad, but nevertheless an expert in comic timing which could make people laugh out loud. His heyday was in the silent era, physical humour rather than verbal. He was less successful in the sound era, making films now it again even up to A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Donald O’ Connor impersonated him in the 1957 The Buster Keaton Story.
This film, made by MGM, has some satiric touches about the cameraman for the newsreels, getting tips, rushing to scenes to film, getting scoops, performing a service to the public. This is acknowledged in the first few minutes and then we are told there are other photographers and we meet Buster Keaton trying to take portraits on the street, people getting in the way, pushing, being crowded, failing. But he does see an attractive young woman who is friendly but goes off with the MGM cameraman.
The next part of the film has him going to the office searching for the girl, not noticing at first, being ridiculed by the cameraman in the office, being ousted by the boss – with some comic business with his camera and tripod hitting and missing people and breaking glass.
Told there is a fire in a warehouse, he mixes up, with the captions, with the where and house. Then he goes round filming all kinds of things, only to fail with his audition.
He has a pleasant Sunday walk with the girl, a funny scene with him talking on the phone to her, her continuing to talk and his running to be with her when she hangs up. He also has a tangle with a monkey who then accompanies him causing some mischief but, ultimately, causing success. There is a very funny business at the swimming pool where he has to share a changing room with a very large man and they manoeuvre to get from their clothes to their swimming togs, he having the big man’s. Buster Keaton shows off in diving, swimming, even losing his swimming togs and having to borrow some surreptitiously from a large lady.
The sequences were incorporated into the 1950 Red Skelton comedy which was based on aspects of this film, Watch the Birdie.
The girl gives him a tip that there is a festivity in Chinatown and off he goes. It turns out to be an ambush, a gun battle in which he is continually standing, or avoiding shots or people, and filming everything. However, the monkey has mixed up the boxes of film. When he sees the girl and the newsreel cameraman on a lake and overturned, he rushes out to save her, while the cameraman saves himself, then taking the credit when he finds the girl lying on the beach.
It all culminates in the monkey providing the proper box rather than the empty camera that the boss saw and turfed him out. Not only is there good footage of the battle, but it is revealed that the cameraman didn’t rescue the girl.
Running just over an hour, this film, along with The General, this is a fine example of Buster Keaton’s work.
