31 FABER SILENTS
Steamboat Bill, Jr. Starring: Buster Keaton, Marion Byron Directors: Buster Keaton & Chas. F. Reisner Production Company: Joseph M. Schenck Productions USA, 1928
A
marvellous comedy set in a lazy riverside town in the Deep South, with Buster as the foppish, city-educated boy who returns home to prove a grave disappointment to his father, a burly steamboat captain looking for stout filial support, and reluctantly joins him in his efforts to fight off a wealthy rival threatening to take over the river.
T
he Davis score makes use of the 1910 popular song ‘Steamboat Bill’. What follows is a score of determined Americana: marches, hornpipes and blues. The ultra modern heroine in her smart new car speeds on to a Charleston while the eccentric Buster is more sedate but is incredibly agile and clever, moving through the score in Ragtime.
PERFORMANCE INFORMATION Duration: 71 minutes Players: 1(=picc).0.1.0 - 0111 - perc(3): - pno/synth - ukulele(=gtr and electric gtr) - strings (11111)
‘Hilarious, of course, with both delicately observed jokes and energetically athletic stuntwork coursing through the movie. But what really delights is the detailed depiction of small town life, plus Keaton’s comic awareness of his own persona... And the final masterstroke is the cyclone sequence, in which the entire town is destroyed but Buster remains miraculously untouched.’ Time Out, 2015
‘…it’s a comed pip of a of Kea y. It’s one Variet ton’s best.’ y, 1927
FILM PRINT INFORMATION New 4k restoration DCP available from Cohen Film Collection (N. America) and Park Circus (Rest of World)
Available Prints 35mm PAL DVD NTSC DVD DCP Digibeta