Description:
Buster Keaton revisits his familiar persona of a spoiled society dandy thrown into the surreal world. Young millionaire Rollo Treadway (the sap in the family tree, according to a title card) embarks on a long voyage to nurse his broken heart when his lady love, Kathryn McGuire, turns down his proposal of marriage. Of course he winds up on the wrong dock and boards a derelict ship, which (as luck would have it) McGuire has also boarded. Foreign spies set the ship adrift on the high seas, stranding the pampered heirs, who must now fend for themselves. Keaton indulges in his love of Rube Goldberg contraptions with an elaborate jun
Buster Keaton revisits his familiar persona of a spoiled society dandy thrown into the surreal world. Young millionaire Rollo Treadway (the sap in the family tree, according to a title card) embarks on a long voyage to nurse his broken heart when his lady love, Kathryn McGuire, turns down his proposal of marriage. Of course he winds up on the wrong dock and boards a derelict ship, which (as luck would have it) McGuire has also boarded. Foreign spies set the ship adrift on the high seas, stranding the pampered heirs, who must now fend for themselves. Keaton indulges in his love of Rube Goldberg contraptions with an elaborate jungle of levers and hatches that turns a giant galley into a veritable automat and dives into 20th-century technology when he dons a diving suit for a hilarious underwater sequence. McGuire makes a marvelous comic partner for Keaton, a gifted physical comedian and a spunky love interest, while the ship plays straight man to their pratfalls and gags, practically coming alive like a haunted house in their first terrified night aboard. The match between man and massive machine proved so successful that Keaton returned to the concept for his two greatest comedies, The General and Steamboat Bill Jr. Also featured are a pair of appropriately aquatic shorts: The Boat, in which Buster packs his family into a leaky houseboat, and The Love Nest, which pits castaway Buster against a despotic captain. --Sean Axmaker
Brilliantly exemplifying Buster Keaton's ability to mine rich humor from the inanimate, "The Navigator" (1924, 65 min.) is a classic of the Golden Age of Comedy. Keaton stars as Rollo Treadway, an inexperienced lad of extraordinary wealth, but little common sense. He finds himself adrift on "The Navigator," a 500-foot yacht, with no one but an equally naive girl (Kathryn McGuire). Together they face the misadventures that befall them on the high seas, from cannibals to unfamiliar domesticity. As a special feature, this DVD includes two additional shorts demonstrating Keaton's penchant for maritime mayhem. In "The Boat" (1921, 22 min.), Buster and family set sail aboard the homemade "Damfino," while in "The Love Nest" (1923, 20 min.), a recently rediscovered lost film, he trades sailboat for U-boat to plumb new depths of hilarity.
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Manufacturer: Image Entertainment
Release date: 23 November 1999
Number of discs: 1
EAN: 0738329012427 UPC: 738329012427
Tags: Comedy (1), Recommended (1), High Seas (1), Slapstick (1), Vintage (1), Comedies (1), AFI Top 100 (1), Silent Cinema (1), Silent Films (1), AFI Top 100 Laughs (1), Stranded/Castaway (1)
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