Steamboat Bill, Jr.
1928 · 69 min · Silent · Comedy
Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928): the Buster Keaton film where two tons of housefront fall on him and he walks away. Watch the silent comedy free online, no account.
Keaton as a soft college kid sent home to a father who runs a beaten-up riverboat, played by the six-foot-four Ernest Torrence, who is visibly appalled by him from the first minute. Charles Reisner directed. The last reel is a cyclone and it is about as good as physical comedy gets.
The famous shot is not a trick. Two tons of building front come down on Keaton and an open attic window passes around him with a couple of inches to spare either side, his mark on the ground a single nail. Crew members reportedly would not look.
The finale was written as a flood until the Mississippi actually flooded in 1927 and the studio killed the idea. The cyclone was Keaton's replacement.
Free to watch via internet-archive, tubi, pluto.
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