|
 |
Doughboys
|
by MGM (Warner)
Sales Rank: 24727
Price: $19.98
|
|
|
The wonderful Turner Classic Movies recently broadcast DOUGHBOYS during a Buster Keaton marathon in which they had just aired three of Keaton's 20s silent short films. The difference between this film and those classics was enormous. Conventional wisdom tells us that Buster Keaton's career plummeted (after peaking in the 1920s) when he signed his MGM contract, thus losing the creative control that he had enjoyed previously.<p>I knew this fact previously, so I went into DOUGHBOYS not expecting much. It was a comedy war film following Keaton's character from army boot training to combat. There have been other movies that have taken these elements and made entertaining and funny scenarios out of them, so I assumed that there existed the potential for quality. I made it a point to take the jokes on their own merits rather than anticipating the heights that I had seen in Keaton's silent films. Unfortunately, I had to wait quite a long time for the jokes. Eventually I realized that what I had been viewing as awkward silences were, in fact, the jokes.<p>Oh dear, this was painful. Buster Keaton never had a chance to save this one, because he has absolutely nothing to work with. I never felt sorry for a film star the way I felt for Buster Keaton in this stinker. What was MGM thinking? They get one of cinema's most original and creative minds and put him in the most clichéd and unfunny comedies I've seen. <p>I only laughed twice while watching this film. The first was the sequence where Buster (in drag) manages to infiltrate a stage show and gets involved in an energetic fight/dance routine. It's Buster playing to his slapstick strengths, so naturally the result is graceful and hilarious. The second laugh comes from almost the very end, where Buster finds himself behind enemy lines and discovers unexpected conditions.<p>Two funny gags do not a good film make. To any fan of Buster Keaton, I would recommend just fast forwarding to the dance sequence and forgetting about the rest. Oh, Buster, why, why, why?
Viewer Reviews
This isn't a four star film if you're not a fan of Buster Keaton. However, if you are a fan, it has a far more independent feel to it than its predecessor, Free and Easy, which was Buster's first talkie. Here Buster plays a wealthy young man who doesn't quite get how the rest of the world works until he manages to accidentally join the Army and is shipped overseas during World War I. Ed Brophy does a great job as an over-loud sergeant who is always on Buster's case, and Cliff Edwards pairs up well with Keaton in a musical number and a skit. This is probably second to Speak Easily as being the best of Keaton's MGM talkies, although there is still no comparison to his silent features. Maybe this film is OK because it seems that Buster was allowed to put more of his stamp on it than his other MGM films. For example, the scene where he is entertaining the troops is right out of how he actually entertained soldiers when he was in the Army during World War I. Also, Keaton always said he never quite got the point of WWI since he knew so many nice Germans. Keaton's passivist views comes through in subtle ways throughout the film rather than with the more heavy-handed way Chaplin conveyed the same message.
No part of it is actually an embarrassment to watch, and the parts that are belabored are less so than some parts of Keaton's lesser silents. However, Buster never reaches the heights that he does in any of those silents either. The main problem with this and all of Keaton's talking pictures was that early sound pictures were all going for dialogue laughs and that was just not Buster's brand of comedy. However, if you are a Keaton fan there is still much to like about this wartime comedy. Too bad it is not out on DVD.
Back To Top
|
Doughboys
Available from Amazon
|
|
NOTICE: All product prices, availability, and specifications
are subject to verification by their respective retailers.
Copyright © 2009, Dominant Systems Corporation
info@HowlingVideo.com
Privacy Policy
Last Modified : 1-6-2009
|
