The Boat

'The Boat' shows Buster Keaton as a boat builder, taking his wife and two children to the launch of his boat. As the four hit the ocean they learn there are quite some surprises to this boat. That things will not happen as planned is an understatement. Although there are quite some nice gags in this short film, it is only mildly funny.

The first half is so much more entertaining than the second, which seems a little boring. It uses more of the same gags and the new ones play too long. Keaton is able to show his physical a couple of time, using the entire boat as a prop, making this short a nice part in his oeuvre. On the other hand, he could have done without 'The Boat'.

This is definitely one of Buster Keaton's better short films. The key is the simplicity of the premise...Keaton's character builds a houseboat...and the multitude of problems that it causes.

The jokes are simple but usually funny (even now in our more "enlightened times" and Keaton's slapstick acrobatics are, as usual, simply wonderful to watch. He uses that one basic, if large, prop...the boat...to great effect.

And the final line, while an old joke, is still funny.

Buster continues to think big in his comedy, foreshadowing what he would do with that train in The General five years later. Here he demolishes a house towing his new boat out of a garage, has a Model T fall off the pier into the harbor, and has a boat launch end up with the craft going straight under the water, never floating, with him standing stoically as is sinks. That was as impressive a stunt to pull off so seamlessly as it was hilarious. Somehow he get the "Damfino" afloat, and then while motoring away from the dock, pulls the pier posts it is still tied to over, sending a couple of fishermen into the drink.

Forget needing drawbridges though. In a rare bit of his character's competence, his boat has a mechanism to pull its rigging down horizontal to allow it to pass under a bridge. Of course when he's distracted a second time, things don't end well. Later Buster pokes a hole in the craft while trying to hang a picture and the boat springs a leak, so he fixes it with one of his wife's hard-as-a-rock pancakes, which was amusing. That's not the end of getting wet of course, as a squall sets in while the family tries to go to sleep. Buster goes to the deck with an umbrella and it's instantly ripped out of his hands and lost. He pulls out a long telescope to search for land, but it arcs downward like a limp noodle. We then get this emergency radio signal:

"S. O. S." "Who is it?" "Damfino." "Neither do I."

That's before the craft rolls over and over in the water, causing Buster to run around like a hamster in a wheel. As his boat continues to be battered this way and that the laughs aren't quite as strong, but the film ends cleverly, with Buster hopelessly trying save his family in a teeny bathtub he's brought along for a life raft, but finding out they weren't as imperiled as he feared.

Lots of lighthearted jokes here but as James Curtis relates in his biography of Keaton, filming for The Boat was interrupted in September when Buster heard that his friend and mentor Roscoe Arbuckle has been jailed in San Francisco, charged with the manslaughter of Virginia Rappe. Distraught, he called a halt to production and didn't shoot the following day either. Tearfully, he said "What right has anybody to condemn a man before he is heard?" It's a poignant backdrop to a funny film.

This was a short that had no long term goals. If not from dumb luck, this movie could have been lost forever. This was found among a series of other shorts that Keaton had kept at home. In many ways, this is a rip off of Chaplin. Nothing seems to go right for this little "Tramp" as he is pushed around and put into one situation after another. Not as funny as many other Keaton classics, it is worth keeping on tape for future generations to enjoy. In many ways, this and The Love Nest are often found with Keaton's classic the Navigator. Both have to do with Keaton on the Ocean. This alone keep them together in a category. If you like Keaton, you'll enjoy this one. If not, you'll agree that this is a dime a dozen for Keaton.

While I love everything Keaton did, I particularly like his short comedies the best. They're packed full of gags and it's always an endless laugh riot from beginning to end. The Boat is one of my favorites, along with The Scarecrow and One Week. Keaton's brusque treatment of his children in this short speaks to my heart since I'm not very fond of children, either. The gag where he measures the temperature of the water before jumping in to save his kid from drowning is priceless and I never cease to laugh. This short is also an early example of Keaton's ability to take one prop and base a whole story around it, a la The General. Sybil Seeley is also excellent as his patient wife and her performances in Keaton's other shorts are equally delightful.