BY RAYMOND BENSON

Most of the available home video options for the works of Buster Keaton consist of his classic—and brilliant—independent films of the 1920s… movies like Our Hospitality, Sherlock Jr., The Navigator, The General, Steamboat Bill Jr., among other features and many shorts. These have separately been repackaged and restored recently by companies like Kino Video and Cohen Media Group.

Now The Criterion Collection is grabbing a corner of the Buster Keaton market with the release of two of his pictures from the late 1920s, after the actor/director was forced to close his indie studio and sign a contract with MGM in order to survive. That’s right, Criterion’s new Blu-ray release of The Cameraman is a double feature! You get not only The Cameraman, Keaton’s 1928 first feature with MGM, but also the second title made with the studio, Spite Marriage (1929). Both pictures are silent, and, in fact, they are the last two silent movies Keaton made. For the remainder of his brief—and unhappy—contract with MGM, he made sound pictures. Unlike many silent era stars, Keaton adapted smoothly to talkies… however, talkies did not adapt easily to Keaton.

The supplements on this superb release emphasize repeatedly how Keaton was mistreated, unable to exert his way of working on the films, and having to bow to the studio’s demands for an “assembly-line” product, i.e., adhering to an approved script before production began, working with an assigned director, and being prohibited from performing most of the hair-raising stunts for which Keaton was known. The comic’s tenure with MGM ended in 1933 with an unceremonious firing, which catapulted Keaton’s stock into a tragic decline. It was only later, in the 1950s, that his work was re-assessed, and he suddenly found himself the object of deserved adoration (for example, Keaton received an honorary Oscar in 1959).

That said, one might not know any of this when viewing The Cameraman, which in this viewer’s opinion, is on par with most of Keaton’s independent features. It’s genuinely funny, with some remarkable set pieces in which Keaton does do his own stunts. The movie was considered lost for many years, with the only print destroyed in the MGM vault fire of 1965. Luckily, a partial print was found overseas in 1968 and another in 1991—and these two treasures were both used to create the version we have today.

It’s the story of Buster, a tintype photographer who attempts to make a living on the streets of L.A. He meets and falls in love with Sally (Marceline Day), a secretary who works at the MGM Newsreels division. Buster applies for a job, but he needs a new camera. He picks up an old, painfully out of date silent film camera from a pawn shop, and proceeds to shoot various assigned subjects—which he totally muffs (hilariously). Sally takes pity on him, though, and keeps helping Buster out. Harold (Harold Goodwin), another newsreel cameraman, is Buster’s rival for Sally’s affections, and soon the conflict between them increases. Finally, in a spectacular and belly-laugh-producing third act, Buster teams up with a hurdy gurdy monkey (played by the amazingly talented Josephine the Monkey, who also worked with Chaplin and Harold Lloyd at various times), and eventually saves the day, Sally, and his job.

Criterion’s new 4K digital restoration looks fantastic—it’s as if the film might have been made yesterday. It comes with a new score composed and conducted by Timothy Brock and is presented in uncompressed stereo. There’s also an audio commentary from 2004 featuring Glenn Mitchell, author of A-Z of Silent Film Comedy.

Contained within the supplements is the complete feature Spite Marriage, which may not be as top-notch as The Cameraman, but it still contains an abundance of laughs and clever set pieces. Here, Keaton is Elmer, a pants-presser, who has a crush on a stage actress, Trilby (Dorothy Sebastian) and he goes to see her perform at every performance. His rival this time is Lionel (Edward Earle), an actor who stars with Trilby. Hilarity ensues when Elmer finds himself backstage before a performance and is quickly inducted to be a soldier extra when the original actor must flee the cops. When Lionel marries another woman, Trilby is so angry that she picks the first man available—who happens to be Elmer—to marry out of “spite” to Lionel. Things obviously do not go well. The last act is reminiscent of Keaton’s The Navigator (1924), that finds the two un-lovebirds alone on a boat cast adrift on the sea.

Spite Marriage is a 2K restoration with its original soundtrack (music plus sound effects, but no spoken dialogue). There is an audio commentary by film historians John Bengtson and Jeffrey Vance.

The rest of the supplements include the excellent 2004 TCM documentary, So Funny It Hurt: Buster Keaton & MGM; Time Travelers, a new documentary by Daniel Raim that features interviews with Bengtson and film historian Marc Wanamaker as they explore sites around Los Angeles where The Cameraman was filmed; new interviews with James L. Neibaur, author of The Fall of Buster Keaton; and a 1979 documentary about the history of the motion picture camera from the early silent days through the first few decades. The package booklet contains an essay by film critic Imogen Sara Smith and a chapter from Keaton’s 1960 autobiography (co-written by Charles Samuels).

Buster Keaton fans should rejoice. The Criterion Collection’s The Cameraman is cause for celebration indeed. Both titles contained within display a cinematic genius still at the full height of his powers. Highly recommended.

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