According to reports, approximately three minutes of footage are presumed lost. The original camera negative for The Cameraman survived for many years but was lost in an MGM vault fire in 1951. Goodwin is functional as a rival, as he was in Keaton’s College (1927), but Harry Gribbon stands out in the supporting cast as a befuddled policeman. Marceline Day is something more than a supporting prop as a leading lady to Buster, thanks to MGM’s insistence on story development. When Sally is endangered by the self-absorbed stupidity of a rival (Harold Goodwin), Buster comes to the rescue and eventually comes through with the real newsreel goods, thanks to an organgrinder’s monkey.īuster is quite funny and looks rather dapper in his dark broad-rimmed hat that was a conscious departure from his signature pork-pie hat. His ineptness causes him to not only lose an opportunity to pick up a lucrative job as a newsreel cinematographer but also to lose his chance at a relationship with Sally, the girl. Despite being forced to work from a tighter scripted shooting plan, the film is still heavily-sprinkled with Keaton’s inventive improvizational gags.Ī meek and bumbling street portrait photographer (Buster Keaton) tries to impress a girl ( Marceline Day) who works in a newsreel office by becoming a newsreel photographer. However, still rolling forward from his creative independent productions of the mid-1920s, The Cameraman (1928) played like another great Buster Keaton film. Ultimately, the change to MGM resulted in a stranglehold on Keaton’s comic creativity, with the ultimate perversion of his screen persona and a disasterous teaming with nightclub performer Jimmy Durante. At first, the move promised bigger production budgets and wider distribution worldwide for Buster’s films. (1928), Buster Keaton became a contract performer at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer when his independent contact was sold by producer (and brother-in-law) Joseph Schenck. Reviews of silent film releases on home video.Īfter completing Steamboat Bill, Jr. However, the best choice is The Cameraman: The Criterion Collection on Blu-ray.Silent Era Home Page > Home Video > The Cameraman We have two massive box sets that are worth picking up. Pretty in Pink is making its Blu-ray debut. Fortunately, while there’s little in the way of quantity, there’s some serious quality this week. Theater closings three months ago are now having a knock-on effect on the home market, as every major theatrical release of 2020 has hit the home market in one form or another, so until theaters are fully open again, no major new theatrical hits will arrive on the home market. New on Disc: The Cameraman gets a Well-Deserved Criterion Collection ReleaseĪ lot of people and industries are suffering because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the entertainment industry is among the hardest hit. The Cameraman is the best movie on this week’s list, but the Blu-ray is the better deal than a VOD rental. The indie drama The Short History of the Long Road is earning a lot of praise. Roger Waters Us + Them is worth the money for fans of Pink Floyd. The Soul Collector should please fans of low-budget horror movies. However, almost everyone should find something worth watching. There are a lot of smaller releases on this week’s list and nothing that truly stands out as a potential hit.
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