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Steamboat Bill, Jr. Movie Review

Steamboat Bill, Jr. is a 1928 silent action comedy film directed by Charles Reisner and starring Buster Keaton. It was a very strong late effort for this famed comedian.

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“That must have happened when the dough fell in the tool chest“

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The film follows a student as he tries to win a rival captain’s daughter after taking over his father’s riverboat. In terms of storytelling, the movie is rather slight. The love interest character played by Marion Byron was pretty much wasted and brushed aside. The movie focuses, thus, solely on the father and son’s relationship, which is its biggest emotional core. But beside that, there isn’t a lot going on here in regards to story.

With that being said, the movie wildly succeeds in the action comedy department. Most Keaton movies contain the mixture of these two genres. I prefer the comedy genre, so this one focusing a bit more extensively on the action side of things did bother me a bit, but there is no denying that the action set pieces here are incredible.

The film is particularly iconic for that famous shot of the house falling down and Keaton’s character surviving as he stood where the windows were. This gag was apparently difficult to pull off and Keaton risked his life executing it, but it paid off as the results are truly unforgettable. That whole cyclone third act was superbly crafted throughout with some incredibly advanced VFX for the time.

The first half was definitely weaker for me as the latter half contains the best moments in the film. One of those is set in a prison and how the son got his father out is, let’s just say, hilariously unexpected and goofy. This scene was the comedic highlight of the picture.

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Steamboat Bill, Jr. benefits from excellent performances from Buster Keaton and also from Ernest Torrence, an actor who deserves more attention for his great work here. The dynamic between the two is the driving force of the entire story. Whenever it focused on anything else, it suffered as a result. The film’s solidly directed, but the editing, cinematography and the use of intertitles are all top-notch. As a result, it’s not among his best works, but it’s close to best.

Steamboat Bill, Jr. has an inferior first half and a somewhat pedestrian story, but the second half is incredible and the movie is both superbly edited and shot. This is a classic Buster Keaton picture that mixes comedy with action largely effortlessly with the most iconic sequence being the house falling down during a cyclone. There are some incredible action set pieces here that were stupendously executed for their time.

My Rating – 4