1929 silent comedy with soundRating: 14/20
Plot: Elmer's a lonely presser of pants. Completely obsessed with the leading actress in a Civil War play, he attends the performance every night and has every line memorized. Unfortunately for the poor pants presser, her man happens to be the male lead in the play. While hanging around backstage, Elmer finds himself filling in for an actor with some sort of legal problems. He doesn't do well, but afterwards, when his love interest's boyfriend starts devoting too much of his time to a pretty blond, the actress marries him out of spite. A bunch of things happen, and they eventually wind up on a boat.
This isn't really a silent movie since there are numerous sound effects throughout. Keaton actually wanted it to be a talkie as he, unlike Chaplin, was ready to embrace the new era of motion pictures. MGM didn't have the studio space apparently. This is a charming little romantic comedy (as expected) even though it's not up there with the independently-produced Keaton feature films. I laughed hardest at a scene involving a fake beard (actually, that was the only laugh), but there are some other good moments as well--a classic "putting the drunk wife to bed" scene and some fisticuffs on the boat where Buster takes on an entire gang of baddies. Stunts are again low key, and a lot of the movie just seems like it could have been made with any leading comedy actor. Keaton's talents were wasted here, so this lacks the magic of most of the rest of his 20's output. I did like the girl (Dorothy Sebastian) in this one. She flops around nearly as much as Keaton.
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