The Taming of the Snood

A couple of years ago I was at a library near where I work and was dismayed to find that the video selection included only one Buster Keaton movie, Sidewalks of New York, an abysmal feature he made for MGM in the early talkie days. Anyone who had never seen Buster's great silent comedies and watched this film instead would get a badly distorted idea of his abilities, and might never want to give him another chance. Now, to add to the frustration, I find that the library down the street from where I live has just acquired its first Keaton material on DVD: a two-disc set of short comedies he made for Columbia Pictures in the late 1930s and early '40s, comedies which, in my opinion, represent the nadir of Buster's entire career. Even the weakest sound features he made at MGM have their moments here and there, and several of the two-reel shorts he appeared in at Educational Pictures in the mid-'30s are surprisingly enjoyable, but the Columbia series is the pits. Jules White, who directed most of them, favored a fast-loud-and-violent approach to film-making, and to say that this is contrary to the spirit of Keaton's best work is putting the matter politely. Wit is absent from these films, and all a viewer can do is feel sorry for the star as he valiantly attempts to lend these bargain basement comedies a touch of class.

I single out The Taming of the Snood for comment because it may well be the worst of the bunch. The closest this short gets to humor is in the opening sequence, when Buster, who runs a hat shop, tries to lure a skeptical lady customer into making a purchase by modeling several goofy new creations. The problem with this scene is obvious: any comedian can get laughs by putting on silly hats. This sort of shtick is for second-stringers like El Brendel or Hugh Herbert, not Buster Keaton. (You don't even need a professional: your Uncle Bob can get a laugh with a funny hat.) Furthermore, fans of his best work will only be reminded of the great hat shop sequence in his silent feature Steamboat Bill, Jr., where the laughs were inspired not by the hats themselves but rather through a carefully developed situation and the star's inspired performance.

In any event, Buster is soon plunged into a half-hearted plot concerning crooks and ill-gotten gain. A stolen jewel is hidden in the band of his famous pork-pie hat, and then we're whisked away to an apartment building where Buster must make a delivery. It is here that he encounters a low-comedy maid played by Elsie Ames, and the picture goes straight down the tubes. Elsie Ames is, bar none, the worst comic I've ever seen. She mugs, she rolls her eyes, she assumes "funny" voices and seems to think she's the cutest thing going. This would be acceptable in a grade school pageant where the performers are, say, 7 years old, but in an adult these outrageously hammy antics are deeply irritating. If Ames had given a performance like this at Keystone back in 1913 director Mack Sennett would have stopped the camera and told her to tone it down a little, but apparently Jules White egged her on. Meanwhile, all Buster can do try to maintain his dignity while this freak makes a fool of herself. There is a brief attempt to re-enact The Three Keatons' table routine from Buster's vaudeville childhood, but Elsie ruins it with her loud-mouthed buffoonery. The final scenes involve a pet parrot who gets the jewel attached to his leg, flies out the window, and nestles on a flagpole. Buster, working in front of a depressingly obvious rear-projection screen, climbs out onto the ledge and engages in some bogus "thrill" comedy while Ames continues to make a nuisance of herself right down to the final fade-out. At that point I imagine Buster heaved a sigh of relief and hustled off to the Bursar's Office to collect his paycheck.

All I can add is that if you're browsing the shelves of your local library and see this collection of Keaton's Columbia output, do yourself a favor: skip it, and seek out his silent work instead. When Buster left Columbia in 1941 he was quoted as saying that he "couldn't stomach turning out even one more crummy two-reeler." If you happen to see The Taming of the Snood you'll find out just what he meant.

This is one of 10 films that are included in the two DVD set "The Buster Keaton Collection". It's a sad set of films Keaton did later in his career with Columbia Pictures and the films bore more resemblance to Three Stooges films than Keaton's classic silents. Of the 10, eight were directed by Jules White--a man who had absolutely no understanding or appreciation of Keaton's subtle humor. As a lady said in the documentary included with the set ("Buster Keaton: From Silents to Shorts"), White's idea of funny was dropping anvils on people's heads! His totally unsubtle and dopey humor made all the films he directed with Keaton a chore to watch at times--especially with the silly Stooge sound effects and timing. In addition, this film also co-starred Keaton with Elsie Ames--a completely obnoxious and untalented lady in every film she did with Keaton. Her overly exaggerated facial expressions, mannerisms and yelling made Patsy Kelly look subtle in her shorts for Hal Roach!! So already from the start, Keaton had two major disadvantages in the film, so you certainly cannot expect magic.

In this film, a thief places a stolen ring inside Buster's hat. After that, he goes to the home where Elsie Ames is the maid and the film degenerates into a slapstick nightmare thanks to the loud and obnoxious and totally untalented Ames. She should have been ashamed for her performance--one that the Stooges themselves would have complained about because of its low humor!! This might just be the worst short of the series of ten. Don't say I didn't warn you!

I'm more indulgent towards this late Buster Keaton Columbia short than the other two reviewers on the IMDb. There's nothing fancy about this two reeler, it's basically three set-pieces -- in a hat shop, taming the drunken maid, and falling off the building -- around a plot to keep a stolen jewel from the police. It's not the strongest of Keaton's late shorts for Columbia, but it's formlessness allows Buster to infuse the short with a lot of inventive (and probably largely invented on the spot) physical comedy.

The hat shop scene in probably the weakest; the laughs are expected to come mainly from the funny prop hats the Buster shows off, but this only goes so far. The biggest laugh here comes from Buster's attempt to use a water basin as a mirror and hold it up his customer, and then to use a MOP to clean up someone wet.

The scene with the accidentally drunk maid is purely Keaton mining comedy from nothing but a table and a prostrate actress, and it works well despite the fact that Keaton's support, actress Elsie Ames, is way over the top and not too funny. This sequence and the next are played with hardly any dialogue, but I got a laugh purely out of the way Buster delivers the line "She's out... I hope." I will still argue with anyone who says he couldn't speak well.

The third act, after Buster has accidentally fallen out the window, is a curious echo of many 20s comedy involving Harold Lloyd and then many other comics hanging off buildings. Here it's very clear that back projection is being used rather than an actual high building, but it's so well played by the star, who seems to have influenced the material to fit the particular set-up of this film, that I don't mind.

This short may be clearly cheap and largely made up on the spot, but that's a large part of what makes it so charming and allows Buster the latitude create comedy out of the materials at hand.