Product Description

Brilliantly exemplifying Buster Keaton's ability to mine rich humor from the inanimate, "The Navigator" (1924, 65 min.) is a classic of the Golden Age of Comedy. Keaton stars as Rollo Treadway, an inexperienced lad of extraordinary wealth, but little common sense. He finds himself adrift on "The Navigator," a 500-foot yacht, with no one but an equally naive girl (Kathryn McGuire). Together they face the misadventures that befall them on the high seas, from cannibals to unfamiliar domesticity. As a special feature, this DVD includes two additional shorts demonstrating Keaton's penchant for maritime mayhem. In "The Boat" (1921, 22 min.), Buster and family set sail aboard the homemade "Damfino," while in "The Love Nest" (1923, 20 min.), a recently rediscovered lost film, he trades sailboat for U-boat to plumb new depths of hilarity.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #78041 in DVD
• Released on: 1999-11-23
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Black & White, DVD, Silent, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Dubbed in: Japanese
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 107 minutes

Amazon.com
Buster Keaton revisits his familiar persona of a spoiled society dandy thrown into the surreal world. Young millionaire Rollo Treadway (the sap in the family tree, according to a title card) embarks on a long voyage to nurse his broken heart when his lady love, Kathryn McGuire, turns down his proposal of marriage. Of course he winds up on the wrong dock and boards a derelict ship, which (as luck would have it) McGuire has also boarded. Foreign spies set the ship adrift on the high seas, stranding the pampered heirs, who must now fend for themselves. Keaton indulges in his love of Rube Goldberg contraptions with an elaborate jungle of levers and hatches that turns a giant galley into a veritable automat and dives into 20th-century technology when he dons a diving suit for a hilarious underwater sequence. McGuire makes a marvelous comic partner for Keaton, a gifted physical comedian and a spunky love interest, while the ship plays straight man to their pratfalls and gags, practically coming alive like a haunted house in their first terrified night aboard. The match between man and massive machine proved so successful that Keaton returned to the concept for his two greatest comedies, The General and Steamboat Bill Jr. Also featured are a pair of appropriately aquatic shorts: The Boat, in which Buster packs his family into a leaky houseboat, and The Love Nest, which pits castaway Buster against a despotic captain. --Sean Axmaker

Customer Reviews

This 2-video set contains 6 of Buster Keaton's two-reelers.
A great sample of one of the greatest comic genius's of all-time. This is a 2 video set containing: The Electric House; The Boat; The Paleface; The Frozen North; The Playhouse; Cops. It was delightful. I showed some of these to my 13 year old son and made a new Buster Keaton fan.

Buster at his Best!
A collection of some of Buster Keaton's best short films, including the ELECTRIC HOUSE. In this film, Buster is mistaken for a professor of electricity and rewires a house with some very funny effects and amazing results. In THE BOAT Buster builds a boat to take his family out in, until a storm occurs which almost ruins the event! THE PALEFACE contains some super stunts, all done by the man himself, who gets caught up with some indians who try to kill him! FROZEN NORTH is one of my personal favorites, with Buster totally out of character imitating William S Hart filled with crazy sight gags and unexpected twists. In THE PLAYHOUSE, Buster plays most of the characters showing off his talents as a film maker in an amazing short where he works in a theatre. COPS is one of his best remembered because of the hundreds of police who chase the poor Buster after he accidently bombs a parade of cops! The difinitive collection for those who are devoted to Buster Keaton, or those who have never heard of him. A great value pack which shows the silents accompanied by music as they should be in perfect condition, a valuable part of my collection, make it part of yours and have a good laugh at the Great Stone Face....

Buster's Maritime 3
THE NAVIGATOR (1924): One of Buster's best features. A fast-paced fun collection of classic gags, Buster filmed on top of "The Buford", a ship that was actually used by the U.S. govt. to dump alleged Bolsheviks out of the USA and into Russia in 1919. The film begins with Buster proposing marriage to his gal, who turns him down. The two mistakenly wind up on the ship, called The Navigator, which happens to be deserted and floundering at sea. They make do the best they can, and eventually must deal with cannibals on a tropical island. One of the funniest Buster gags I've ever seen is in this movie - while he's trying to go to sleep in his cabin, his gal throws a snarly-looking portrait of a swabo out of her cabin and it lands on a nail outside the porthole window of Buster's cabin. It swings from side-to-side, giving Buster the illusion that The Navigator is haunted. More haunted-ship gags follow (spook gags show up in other Buster films), which makes me wonder if Buster was influenced by something he saw not-of-this-world in the 1000 or more boarding houses and hotels he stayed in during those previous 20 years in vaudeville.

THE BOAT (1921): In this 2-reeler, Buster builds a boat, called The Damfino, in the basement of his home. Since the garage doors are only meant for something like a Model T, Buster idiotically collapses his house as he forces The Damfino through this small opening. No one in the family seems to be bothered that their home now looks as if it was hit by a tornado, as they proceed to drive off to launch The Damfino. "The Boat" was thought to be one of Buster's lost films. It miraculously got pieced together recently, and that is what you'll find on this DVD. There are some scenes that have a curious blue tint that alternate with b&w scenes, and a few scenes have chemical decomposition, but none of these shots lasts more than a few seconds. Watching "The Boat" sometimes gives me motion sickness because of the somersaulting camerawork in a scene near the end. If my head is not spinning from this, I'll move on to....

THE LOVE NEST (1923): Buster's had a spat with his gal, and writes her a letter that happens to end with "write me if you don't get this letter". He sets sail in a crippled boat that is stocked with junk like hard tack and zerolene. Evidence of the passage of time is shown by the fake beard painted on his face that makes him look like a half-minstrel. Desperately, he climbs aboard a boat called The Love Nest that ironically is run by a sinister captain who throws his crew overboard if they should make the slightest mistake. One of the funniest gags in this 2-reeler shows Buster standing in front of a navy target range, then grainy stock footage of active naval destroyers is shown, which blow him sky-high.