The Fall of Buster Keaton

With Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd, stone-faced Buster Keaton ranked among the top silent film comic geniuses. The other two were astute businessmen who retained their fabulous wealth and reputations, while Keaton fell off the map in the early 1930s. He went on to make two-reel comedy shorts for Educational Pictures and then Columbia, films that he later dismissed as "crummy." Neibaur (Chaplin at Essanay: A Film Artist in Transition, 1915–1916) summarizes the plots and sometimes the critical reception of each, as well as the films Keaton made at M-G-M and those he appeared in until his death. Numerous books have discussed Keaton's career after he lost his creative independence and was subsumed into the M-G-M factory, and Neibaur does not add new insight. He writes as more of an ardent fan than a historian, in a bland, gee-whiz style, liberally quoting from other books. Because more of the comedian's shorts have become widely available, the greatest value in this book is a reevaluation of the films' merits.