Cheap Buster Keaton - 65th Anniversary Collection (General Nuisance / His Ex Marks the Spot / Mooching Through Georgia / Nothing but Pleasure / Pardon My Berth Marks / Pest From the West / So You Won't Squawk / The Spook Speaks / The Taming of the Snood / She's Oil Mine) (DVD) (Jules White) Price
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Here at Cheap-price.net we have Buster Keaton - 65th Anniversary Collection (General Nuisance / His Ex Marks the Spot / Mooching Through Georgia / Nothing but Pleasure / Pardon My Berth Marks / Pest From the West / So You Won't Squawk / The Spook Speaks / The Taming of the Snood / She's Oil Mine) at a terrific price. The real-time price may actually be cheaper — click “Buy Now” above to check the live price at Amazon.com.
If one dials down expectations, some of the Columbia shorts (around 16-17 minutes long) are enjoyable in the baggy-pants style of the Three Stooges. And when it comes to searching for signs of the old Keaton, there are usually one or two blossoms poking out of the overall bluntness. Mooching through Georgia, a Civil War spoof, has moments of silent hilarity and a Keatonesque note of fatalism as Buster is marched to his own execution. Nothing but Pleasure has a terrific sequence involving a drunk woman who wanders into Buster's motel room, and Buster's efforts to get her into a Murphy bed. She's Oil Mine features a breathtaking gag in which Keaton is spun around like a tire iron in order to get a pipe unstuck from his finger. Keaton, in his mid-40s, is still in athletic form, although thanks to alcohol and disappointment he looks older than his years.
Commentaries adorn the shorts, and there's a useful 25-minute documentary giving the general outline of Keaton's life and details on the Columbia arrangement. It's refreshingly honest about the mixed quality of these films, and contains excerpts from his silent shorts that suggest how far the genius had slipped. In that sense, while this DVD package honorably presents a moment from film history (and with fine technical specs all around), the actual watching of these shorts is tinged with sadness. The casual moviegoer curious about Keaton should go elsewhere; the completist will want it; the amateur historian will want to give a look to see what the "missing years" were all about. --Robert Horton
| CATEGORY: | DVD |
| DIRECTOR: | Jules White |
| THEATRICAL RELEASE DATE: | 13 December, 1940 |
| MANUFACTURER: | Sony Pictures |
| MPAA RATING: | NR (Not Rated) |
| FEATURES: | Black & White, DVD-Video, Full Screen, Subtitled, NTSC |
| TYPE: | Comedies, Drama, Feature Film Drama, Feature Film-drama, Movie |
| MEDIA: | DVD |
| MPN: | D12137D |
| # OF MEDIA: | 2 |
| UPC: | 043396121379 |
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Customer Reviews of Buster Keaton - 65th Anniversary Collection (General Nuisance / His Ex Marks the Spot / Mooching Through Georgia / Nothing but Pleasure / Pardon My Berth Marks / Pest From the West / So You Won't Squawk / The Spook Speaks / The Taming of the Snood / She's Oil Mine)
much better than expected The Columbia shorts are much maligned, yet this set proves that this is unfair for the most part. Out of the 10 two-reelers Buster did for Columbia, at least seven are quite good. Sure, they do not reach the heights of his silent classics, and they were made on the (very) cheap. But they are very energetic and fast-moving, and even in his forties (and after a gruelling battle with alcohol and depression) Buster still busts out some very impressive physical skills. Plots don't make sense, slapstick is everywhere, and the influence of director/producer Jules White, who was the man behind the Three Stooges shorts, is very noticeable. Yet he still allows Buster to be Buster, in most cases (not giving him too much dialogue, allowing him to rework some of his older routines in a creative way). Buster is at his worst when handling dialogue: he never sounds comfortable, his voice is scratchy and monotonous and he has a tendency to bob his head with every word he utters. Yet when he is silent, the magic is still there. <
>Some of the shorts use Harold Lloyd-style gags, others have scenes clearly inspired by Laurel and Hardy, and several times Buster adapts the plot of earlier (talkie) films he was in. Most successfully so in the delightful Pest from the West, a far shorter remake of his British film The Invader. It's probably the only film here which equals Buster's silent material for inventiveness and surreal humor. But there is much fun to be had with almost every film in this collection. <
>Buster has an appealing leading lady in Dorothy Appleby, and a more... special one in Elsie Ames, who is so raucous she makes Betty Hutton seem demure. On the other hand, she has some very impressive physical skills which makes her the only female performer who could (almost) match Buster on the acrobatic front. Another recurring player is Monty Collins, who is another broad comedian with far less talent than Keaton. But in some of the shorts, they play off each other quite well (especially Mooching In Georgia, a Civil War farce). <
>The extras are nice: informed commentaries by film historians and a good documentary on Keaton's work in the thirties, and, most impressively, a facsimile of an original script, including the hand-written notes of the director. <
>Highly recommended for anyone who loves old-school slapstick comedy, not only for Keaton fanatics. <
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Wildly uneven, this is a one-watch special.
Yes, you will basically buy this collection to watch it once. But then, NO Buster Keaton fan has any excuse to avoid this set, which contains many fine moments interpersed with the crummy overall quality of these films.
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>First, let's deal with the quality of this set, seperate from the quality of the content.
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>These films have been pretty well mastered, are clean, and have that typical crummy Columbia sound and sound effects. These were not carefully filmed or recorded, but were done well enough to be acceptable. The transfers are well done, and the commentaries are pretty good.
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>The package is rather wierd. It's as if we aren't supposed to know what we are really getting. No mention is made of the Columbia Studio on the outside of the box at all, and the era these films were made is only apparent if you look really closely. The front picture is of a Buster who is MUCH younger than he was when he made these films, and the drawing on the back appears to not be Buster as much as James Dean. The shooting script may be the most pointless of bonus materials ever included in a set.
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>That said, these films have been regularly crucified by various reviewers over the years. It's hard to say whether they really deserve this treatment. Sure, these are pretty weak stuff compared to Buster in his heyday, but there are some absolutely brilliant moments when Buster gets to really have some fun. "General Nuisance" has a particularly funny moment when Buster is doing a dance routine with a visitor, and steps into two brass spittoons. He completes his tap routine incredibly wel using the spittoons as taps! I'm not sure how many other comedians could have done this. "Pest from the West" is a relief from some of his worse work, and "The Taming of the Snood" is a rather bizarre piece that works rather well.
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>Some other films are merely terrible. "His Ex Marks the Spot" probably should be on a list of films to allow to burn if the archives catch fire. "Pardon My Berth Marks" has a title that by itself should be shot.
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>The other actors are pretty terrible, and Buster is often just marking time, but those good moments shine through and make it worthwhile, until you think about the actual effort it would take to watch this set and find them again. I suggest that you take good notes about what you like, and store them with the discs, so that if you ever do mistakenly watch this set again, you will be able to watch al the really good parts, and then, 20 minutes later, watch something better.
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>4 stars for guts in releasing this.
Keaton Still Weaves His Magic
Having never seen any of these Columbia Shorts before purchasing this set I relied entirely on other's comments, some were not so favourable and others were. I am glad I listened to the favourable comments as this is a set that I am very glad to own.
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>I know that Buster was not necessarily proud of his work at Columbia (he called the Columbia shorts "Cheaters") and that was due to a couple of reasons. They would not give him the time to develop storylines and they would not give him the money. The director on 8 of the 10 shorts was Jules White(of 3 Stooges fame), who was not sympathic to Buster's form of comedy, but Buster needed the money. Having said that I have to add that within all these shorts are moments of Keaton's magic and that is why they are worth watching and owning.
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>A couple of stand outs here in my opinion are "Pest from the West" (which was his first Columbia short) and "Mooching Through Georgia". There is excellent and informative commentary on all these shorts and a very interesting documentary to show how Buster came to be making these shorts. I would not recommend these to new Buster fans, I would say get his classics first, including his Arbuckle Shorts.
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>Lastly on a Region note I live in Australia and I had no trouble playing this DVD on my multi region DVD player.
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