Buster Keaton: Tempest in a Flat Hat

Like everyone else I wondered at the way McPherson seems to have curtailed his life of Buster Keaton so that when he joins MGM, the book rushes through the last thirty-five years in 20 pages or so. Surely this is exactly the kind of myth-making that McPherson says he's going to set out to dis-assemble? For years, ever since the glory days of James Agee, veryone has been saying that Keaton's sound work is nothing compared to his silent films. So what's new about McPherson's take? I did enjoy his announcement that he would not fall into the cliche of discussing Keaton's famous deadpan glare, the "old stone face" aspect of his screen persona. But if you leave that out, you're leaving out an important element of what made him such a memorable, even poetic actor. As McPherson admits, the apparent decline in Keaton's sound career stems perhaps from the fact that speech itself destroys deadpan. "Words betray a stone face," he writes on page 216. Well put! On the plus side, McPherson gives us some good synopses and outlines of the major 20s masterpieces, though will they encourage newbies to go order these films from Netflix or wherever? I don't know. I had the feeling that McPherson sort of ran out of time and wound up turning his manuscript in to the publisher without having really thought much about anything after STEAMBOAT BILL, Jr (1928). No, I take that back. McPherson deserves an extra star for his original ideas about Keaton and television, and how he was able to thrive in the bizarre world of 50s TV by adapting old vaudeville routines to the "box." If you ask me, Keaton does not shine out gloriously over every other aspect of Chaplin's LIMELIGHT, as McPherson would have you think, but it is interesting to think that, at the time of LIMELIGHT's filming, Chaplin was making himself into a relic, more and more out of touch with contemporary society, while Keaton was keeping up by appearing in America's living rooms on a regular basis, and of course this populist manuevering was to wind up in hhis spectacular last act as the great star of all those beach party m movies of AIP in the early 60s, one of the greatest film series of all time, with wonderful Annette Funicello.

Buster Keton is one of the best actor-directors in movie history, and has received biographical attention before - but for true depth don't miss Buster Keaton: Tempest In A Flat Hat: it comes from a young writer who spent over a year repeatedly watching over 60 Keaton films and follows Keaton's career from vaudeville to silent film. Keaton used his vaudeville years to apply some unique techniques to the silents: Buster Keaton: Tempest In A Flat Hat identifies and celebrates these techniques and describes his life and influences.

Mr Keaton has long been one of my favorite persons and the marvelous biography by Mr. McPherson has polished the image of a really marvelous actor. I read the book in one evening and i intend to read it again. I await Mr. McPherson's next book. He's very good at this.

Almost forty years after his death, Buster Keaton is increasingly appreciated as a comic artist. The movies of his only real competitor for silent film clown, Charlie Chaplin, are usually marred by sentimentality, but Keaton was having none of that. As Edward McPherson writes, in _Buster Keaton: Tempest in a Flat Hat_ (Newmarket Press), "Keaton's films are witty, beautiful, unsentimental, moving, and - most of all - funny." McPherson writes that his book is "merely a fan's notes," a celebration of Keaton's work. As such, almost all its pages are lovingly devoted to Keaton's films of the twenties. There was a Keaton after the silent film days were over, and he did make a triumph over various adversities, but his silent shorts and full-length films are wonderful, and are still being mined as examples of timing and technical wizardry. This is not a full biography, but a celebration, and it is all the better for that. Young Keaton joined his parents in vaudeville performances. He literally joined them by wandering onstage; the parents tried tying him offstage or putting him into a trunk, but it turned out that the best way to keep an eye on him was to bring him into the act. The usual skit involved Joe's helter-skelter efforts to discipline his son, and Keaton simply was tossed around on the stage, thrown into the orchestra pit, or used as a mop. It sounds rough, but Keaton was a ham and loved it, and always denied that he had anything to complain about. Fatty Arbuckle was a fan of the Keatons' act, and had already "borrowed" some of their gags for celluloid. When Keaton wandered into Arbuckle's studio in New York in 1917, he was invited to take part in a scene involving a mess of gooey molasses and being knocked for a backwards summersault from a store out into the street. Arbuckle recognized a movie natural immediately, and Buster signed on to the company. Arbuckle's collaborative and freeform way of making gags was just what Keaton wanted, and what he instituted when he started making his own movies in Hollywood. McPherson describes all of the great films here, with descriptions of how the stunts and the accomplished trick photography were done. It all ground down when Keaton lost his independent studio and went to work for MGM, which wanted scripts, budgets, and shooting schedules; the jolly, funny atmosphere of a team intoxicated by making comic movies evaporated. The other great impediment to Keaton's way of working was sound. The days of hooking the camera to a boat, car, or train and letting it go were over. Keaton was shoe-horned into drawing-room, all-talking productions. McPherson describes but does not detail the years thereafter, when Keaton had embarrassing journeyman jobs as his only outlet, and then cameos in such films as _Sunset Boulevard_, and even in beach blanket movies. His troubles with alcoholism (eventually conquered) and two difficult marriages (the third one was charmed) are here. Here also, however, is

I bought this book in London and could not put it down. It was fascinating to read about Keaton's early years in show business and how he grew to be one of America's most admired actors. Mr. Mcpherson's book is hilarious, engrossing and full of surprises. He brings to life Buster Keaton's story. If you are a movie aficionado as I am, you will love this book.