What-No Beer?

Having heard for years how bad this film is, I must concur with the previous reviewer, who said "not that bad." This was the last of the three films where Keaton was teamed with Jimmy Durante, and while this is not as good a film overall as SPEAK EASILY, it IS better than THE PASSIONATE PLUMBER (although PP includes some great individual scenes), and also it is the only film of the three where Keaton and Durante work together as an actual comedy team. Much has been written about Keaton's alcohol abuse during the shooting of this film (in fact, Keaton was fired from MGM for that, even though WHAT NO BEER was a smash hit at the box office!), but since the Elmer character he is playing is basically a stoic, introverted guy, it's not too evident...and anyway, a pro like Keaton could deliver this uninspired dialogue in his sleep. The plot--involving Durante and Keaton starting a brewery near the end of prohibition and facing the wrath of both the police and the bootlegging underworld--allows for a number of good comic set-ups, the scene with Keaton explaining his business practices to the gangsters is particularly funny. Keaton's US career would revive a few years later when he began making his much-underrated comedy shorts at Educational Pictures, but WHAT NO BEER is the last film of his initial sound period at MGM, and as such it is a historic film. Also, it's an entertaining comedy with Keaton still in OK form.

The repeal of the twelve-year dry period known as Prohibition on alcohol was looking like it would happen as the year 1933 began. Franklin D. Roosevelt had promised during his presidential campaign earlier in the fall to end the ban, in part to collect for the government much needed tax revenue on beer, wine and spirits. Once FDR won in a landslide, MGM predicted the end of bootlegging suds when it released in February 1933 its Buster Keaton comedy, "What? No Beer!"

The movie is about two enterprising guys anticipating the quick repeal of Prohibition. They end up buying a shuttered beer brewery and are ready to go into business, only to see Congress delaying its action towards repeal. Elmer Butts (Buster Keaton), who lays down the money to finance the brewery's purchase, and Jimmy Potts (Jimmy Durante), the man with the beer-making idea, get into quite a jam because of the delay. "What? No Beer!" was the third and last film MGM teamed Keaton and Durante together. The importance of the movie not only serves as a window showing the historic transformation about to take place in the liquor industry, but it was also the final feature film in the United States Keaton would appear in as the lead. It's the last picture he made for MGM, a frustrating experience for the prior-independent actor/director/writer.

Keaton's personal fortunes were sinking fast since his acrimonious divorce to his first wife, Natalie Talmadge, in 1932. His bad drinking habits created a ton of problems for him. MGM docked his salary 20% to pay for expenses it rang up when he inexcusably took time off in the middle of filming his last movie, 1932's "Speak Easily." The studio didn't renew his contract after "What! No Beer?", and other Hollywood film companies ignored him. His reputation, especially after the publicized trip to Mexico where he married his personal nurse, Mae Scriven, in a drunken stupor, caused quite a commotion. Keaton claimed he had no recollection of the trip nor the wedding to his nurse whose primary responsibility was to make sure he didn't get drunk.

Keaton's roles during his MGM days, though mostly money makers, saw his on-screen persona drift downwards from playing rock solid confident characters to becoming sheepish, jittery and clueless nobodies for others to sock him. Writes Danny Reid of Buster's part in "What? No Beer!", "Keaton's Butts never rises above the level of morose punching bag." On screen, it was obvious he was showing a level of wear and tear from the toll from drinking purportedly one bottle of whisky a day. His voice is horse, his baggy eyes belie his relatively youthful age of 38, and his energy level is low. The movie, despite a nice profit, failed to convince MGM's president Louis B. Mayer to renew his contract.

Keaton's only offers for his acting services were overseas, where he played in French and British films. He later returned to the states to be in low-budget Education Pictures and Columbia Pictures in a series of shorts. His nurse wife divorced him in 1935, and with therapy, Keaton stopped drinking for five years. In 1940 he met and married Eleanor Norris, 23 years his junior. She turned out to be a staunch supporter of his, turning both his life and career around by getting him the Columbia contract and other part-time gigs. The marriage lasted until his death in 1966 at the age of 71.

"What? No Beer!" was lambasted by film critics, although they did admit the movie had a couple of delightful scenes. In one, paralleling a sequence in his 1925 classic "Seven Chances," which had Keaton running down a hill dodging a number of boulders, here he's being chased by wooden beer barrels that he was hauling up the hill in his truck. Towards the film's conclusion, the movie has Keaton's character opening his Butt's Beer Garden the first day of legalized beer. As soon as FDR took office in March, Congress passed the act legalizing the sale of 3.2 percentage beer. The President signed the law on March 22, 1933, a month after the release of "What? No Beer!" As MGM predicted, Jimmy Durante holds a brimming glass of freshly poured beer to the camera and says, "It's your turn next, folks. It won't be long now!"

I found this movie to be highly entertaining. Durante and Keaton are marvelous together. It is a shame more people don't know about this little gem. Keaton especially is so endearing and so believable. The gowns and furs on the leading lady were outstanding, the height of art deco elegance. Unrealistic for a gangster's moll, but extremely elegant. The cut of one of the dresses was just amazing. The movie moves along at a quick pace, and is just the right length. It is reminiscent of The Lavender Hill Mob, a group of endearing, comedic men trying to pull off a caper. It could also be viewed as a piece of history as it was filmed right around prohibition time.

Surely something all beer lovers would enjoy, the enthusiasm of all that beer.

Keaton followers know his decision to go to MGM was a disaster artistically and the smothering of his talent is apparent in this film. In some scenes he looks like he hasn't slept in days. Stick with it though, as with any chance to glimpse comic genius, you can spot the sparks. Durante, also a unique performer, and Keaton don't make a good team. Keaton was a cool presence, far more subtle and with much more depth of characterization than other comedians of the era. Durante was a hot performer, more verbal, but with a manic physicality. At times, you worry that he's actually hurting Keaton with his constant shoving, grabbing, poking and slapping. There is a rather sexy performance from Phyllis Barry as Keaton's amour and one wonders why she didn't go on to become, as they say. Everybody works very hard which usually kills farce, but there are moments of pure zaniness usually involving barrels, and some good lines satirizing the standard gangster picture. Anyone who loves these two men, as I do, should see this, if only in giggling tribute.

... but I have to admit that Jimmy Durante is doing much of the heavy lifting, particularly in the first half. The plot revolves around a misunderstanding that Jimmy (Jimmy Durante) and Elmer (Buster Keaton) have about the nationwide vote on repealing prohibition. They think that because repeal passes at the polls that Prohibition is automatically repealed, when in fact the law is still completely in force. Thus, the next day, Jimmy has Elmer take out his life savings of ten thousand dollars as a down payment on an old repossessed brewery. The two enlist a trio of unemployed men sleeping in the brewery to help them make beer and they hang a sign outside of the brewery advertising that they are selling beer. Instead of being stampeded by the public though, it is the police that are at the door. The only thing that saves the pair from ten years in Leavenworth is that they are incompetent brewers - their beer has a head but no kick - there's not a drop of alcohol in any of it.

So now when the original trio of unemployed guys sleeping in the brewery dig up a long out-of-work master brewer Jimmy has a brainstorm. The cops already think that he and Elmer are just making "near beer" - an old Prohibition era concoction with the taste of beer minus the alcohol, so there will be no second raid. Jimmy decides to use the brewer to make real beer and real money so Elmer doesn't lose his life savings on the brewery which they have heavily mortgaged. Jimmy lies to Elmer about all of this because he knows Elmer is too honest a fellow to have anything to do with bootlegging. But it isn't long before local gangsters - real bootleggers with real guns - notice there's a down-turn in their business caused by Jimmy and Elmer's beer. A further complication - Elmer is in love from afar with the head gangster's girl.

How will all of this work out? Watch and find out.

This film moved along briskly with several very clever comic twists and turns, and although in this film Durante is Keaton's equal in the comic participation, I really couldn't say that Keaton seemed inebriated, although he did seem to have extra heavy make-up on perhaps to cover up his condition. Durante just seems to be handling the verbal end of the comedy and Keaton stays where he is most comfortable - in the physical and pantomime end of comedy. There's even a repeat of the Seven Chances avalanche at one point, with Keaton and everybody else for that matter, running for their lives not from boulders but from beer barrels.

This is far better than the tiresome "Sidewalks of New York" from two years before, and from what I've read this film did very good business at the box office. With Keaton and Durante having finally gotten comfortable in their comic partnership I'm surprised Louis B. Mayer would have fired Keaton. But then Louis B. always was a sentimental fellow - he never let profit get in the way of his animosity.