Sherlock Jr. / The Navigator with James Urbaniak

[00:00:01] Blank Check with Griffin and David, Blank Check with Griffin and David, don't know what to say or to expect. All you need to know is that the Navigators are shy with Blank Check.

[00:00:21] There is an old proverb which says, don't try to do two things at once and expect to do justice to both. This is the story of a podcast who tried it. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm! See our guest had just said that. He did that as a mic check yeah

[00:00:38] And he did better than you. We are trying to do two things at once in this episode, two different movies. Two movies! Isn't it fun to do a series of double features like this? It's honestly, it's a little, I mean,

[00:00:50] the movies are short obviously, but it is more homework. I do feel that, you know? Because I want to think about the movies. But I also have to, you know, have to set them up and knock them down. Yeah, and sometimes, I find there's usually one...

[00:01:04] You know what's interesting? In most of these double features, and the pairings aren't arbitrary, but they're just chronological, right? It's two at a time in order. Uh, in most of them, there's one that I think ends up in our conversation looming larger,

[00:01:19] feeling like the more important one to talk about. The other one is sort of the backup feature, whether it's first or second in the order. But when you dig into the history of this, the one that looms larger now

[00:01:31] tends to be the one that kind of flopped at the time. Yes. And the one that is... The one that we've forgotten was like a solid hit. Right. Yes, that is true. Because today we're talking about two movies that are, in my opinion,

[00:01:44] his crowning achievement as a filmmaker. You're talking Sherlock Jr. I think is not only his best film, but I think is one of the best films ever made. Absolutely. And then the second film we're talking about, The Navigator,

[00:01:55] was far and away the most successful film of his career. And, uh, you know, it's got a lot of great bits on a boat. And it's not forgotten today, but like no one is putting that up at general Sherlock Jr. level, I would argue.

[00:02:08] I think, you know, it's like the next three weeks we're doing Sherlock Jr. Navigator. So that's, you know, then we're doing Seven Chances and Go West. I guess that's maybe the one where those both are, you know... But Seven Chances is better regarded. Battling Butler and the General.

[00:02:22] The General has become totemic, was kind of a flop at the time. And then College and Steamboat Bill. I feel like Steamboat Bill is one of the last... Steamboat Bill is bigger and Cameraman's bigger than Spite Marriage. Yeah, so like, you know...

[00:02:32] And I think our hospitality is bigger than Three Ages. Yeah. Uh, this is the best one though. Sherlock Jr.? Yes. Once again, I think... Look, we have this conversation, I feel like a couple times a year. It will be sprung up. Serious contender for best movie

[00:02:49] we've ever covered on this podcast. Wow. Because I think it's just in the conversation the best things ever made. I love this thing. I love it too though. I think it's perfect. Here's the thing. We've covered a lot of films that I think are perfect.

[00:03:00] We've covered a handful of what I would deem to be perfect films. Wow. Here's an advantage this one has. It's 45 minutes long. Any other movie I put in the conversation next to it, it's more impressive that this is able to pack

[00:03:14] as much of a punch in half or a third of the time. The real estate that these other movies are using. Um, I may have said this joke on Mike before. I can't remember. But you know, um, I went to see Madea

[00:03:26] at BAM a couple years ago with... Which one goes to jail? Uh... I'm glad you made that joke, because I was gonna make it, but I don't wanna chime in yet. No, no, no. You have to chime in. Thank you for chiming in.

[00:03:38] Um, you know, with Bobby Cannavale and Rose Byrne, a sort of modern update on... They let Bobby Cannavale play Madea? That feels a little problematic. That's like, that's a little bit of a Buster Keaton... Pushing the envelope. That's when you start to go, oh, good.

[00:03:50] And here's the thing about it. Yes. I liked aspects of the production. I had some problems with the other. It was 75 minutes long. And my argument was... That's a tight Madea, baby. Exactly. My argument was that the posters should have just been

[00:04:07] Bobby and Rose pointing at a clock and being like, you'll be out at 8.15. Like, you can have dinner. Yeah. Just like, their mouths are gaping. Madea, now only 75 minutes long. The marketing campaign for anything like that should be like, there's no chance you regret it. Yeah, right.

[00:04:23] The minute you start getting mad at us, we're sending you out the door anyway. Right. Also, features, especially comedy features, were in their infancy, so it wasn't a convention that it had to be 90 minutes. No. There was no studio ahead saying, we gotta pad this like Dark Star.

[00:04:38] No, his longest films... Oh, good reference point. Wow. You come in wearing a T-shirt of a blank check movie, you're pulling out references to other movies we've covered, you're in the tapestry. Yes. For those who can't see, I'm wearing a New Leaf T-shirt

[00:04:56] with a caricature of Elaine May and Walter Mather. Where did you get this shirt? This was a gift. Oh? This was a gift to me from a filmmaker. This is... Do you want to say, was it... I believe it was Heather Ross

[00:05:07] who made a documentary about Bill Close. Okay. Yes. And she knew this would be a good gift. I believe this is... I believe it was her. If someone else gave it to me, I apologize. I believe, if I'm not mistaken,

[00:05:21] this is the artist who does all the tote bags they sell at the IFC Center, David, that are like the sort of menagerie of all the different directors' films. I forget his name. I recently remembered that I had this T-shirt

[00:05:32] because it was in a sort of backup drawer. Yes. I have a lot of T-shirts, a lot of graphic T-shirts. I also have a lot of T-shirts and I need a backup drawer. So I was going through the backup drawer and I found this and I thought,

[00:05:42] oh, I've got to bring this to New York. I think of you as a kind of a master of the graphic tee. Well, I have a lot of... It's not your only thing that you're the master of. No, but I have...

[00:05:53] Since I moved to LA, it's warmer there. So it's more T-shirts. In New York, there was more layering. There was a lot of vintage cardigan work. The thing about New York, as someone who owns a bunch of silly T-shirts,

[00:06:05] you can sort of do the thing where you're like, maybe I'll just wear it under a sweater. It'll just be my little secret that I'm wearing a silly T-shirt. I've become a little more of a long sleeve shirt guy,

[00:06:15] but it's because I can have the graphic tee underneath and decide if I want to get to that point. Have you ever done blazer and T-shirt? Oh, yes. Graphic T-shirt, of course. No, I'm not talking Don Johnson here. We're talking, you know, nerd. Yes, right.

[00:06:30] Don Johnson, but nerd. Right. Don Johnson, but nerd. No, I have done that. Blazer over T-shirt in general, I do think is... You do... Well, you have your sort of corduroy blazer you wear often with a Doughboy's T-shirt underneath. I just... Yeah.

[00:06:47] I need the backup drawer so I'm not, you know, hurriedly looking for a shirt to wear, pulling out the Sonic & Knuckles shirt, being like, well, I can't wear that to the opera. Mitch might be the only person who wears Doughboy's shirts more than you.

[00:06:58] Yeah, I do love my Doughboy's shirts. And I have a lot of Venture Brothers swag. Yes, yes. Because they have these T-shirts, so... Well... The bulk of my current rotation is Venture Brothers shirts. I've gotten to a similar thing. Let me set up the podcast.

[00:07:11] They just give them to you, I assume. What is this podcast? Yeah, tell us what this is. This is our theme. There are a lot of things going on here today. This is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. Lightning fast. It's a podcast about filmographies,

[00:07:25] directors who have massive success early on in their careers. Say, taken falls on stage as an infant. Sure. A child. Bounced off a wall as a three-year-old. Right. And are given a series of blank checks, sometimes by one single person. Sure. Who basically independently finances

[00:07:41] the first 70% of his film career. And then once he gets a studio position, just carries the check book over. Sure. I mean, your sentence is running on at this point, but you're still grasping it. Yeah. Uh, sometimes those checks clear. I was just gonna say, bounce, baby.

[00:07:56] I was worried you were gonna... Indeed, Buster Keaton was a bounce baby. He was a bounce baby. He was the ultimate. He was perhaps the great bounce baby. I know. You don't love to think about it in some ways.

[00:08:06] I know he was the boy that couldn't be injured or whatever, but still. You must want... You could imagine like a Simpsons cutaway gag where the doctor goes, like, every single organ in your body is ruptured. Right. Right. My God!

[00:08:19] It's like, good that the x-rays were pretty primitive back then. Yeah. Yeah. But also, Simpsons didn't seem to have any problems. Yeah. When did we get x-rays? Uh, great question. Wow. I have a cousin who's a radiologist. I could text him now. 1895. That's a flex. That's a flex.

[00:08:34] Uh, but Sherlock Jr., one of the movies we're talking about today, has the gag where he breaks his neck on camera and he famously didn't realize it for like weeks. Just to clarify, the gag is not that he breaks his neck. No. He broke his neck doing stuff.

[00:08:48] Doing the gag. And then only discovered it years later during the checkup. When the doctor was like, when did you break your neck? Right. At the time, I did kind of hurt my neck when I fell off that... And I did have like blinding headaches.

[00:08:59] That water tower spout. Right. That was the thing. They only identified that it had healed weirdly. He had the injury, right? It was like, you know, it was lingering, a bruise or whatever. Now, can I... Is it possible that Buster Keaton died during that stunt?

[00:09:12] You mean like for a minute and then came back? And that he is... It was a Bruce Willis... Oh, how great would that be? How great would that be if there was... He was a ghost. Right. Vanity Fair expose. Buster Keaton was dead for half of his career.

[00:09:24] Yeah. His best films came post-death. That would be pretty good. Yeah. Our guest... It's thrown... It's thrown... Fastballs already. Absolutely. Curveballs, sinkers in the dirt. Yes. We're chasing him like, you know, Carlos Beltran. And let's say that he's an old friend of mine.

[00:09:41] He's one of my favorite actors. But beyond anything else, there's a title, a rare distinction that we need to introduce him with. Okay. He is the most overdue guest in the history of... In the history of Blank Check. I think that is true. That means a lot.

[00:09:56] No, but here's why. I'm not just saying that. And you probably don't remember this. I don't know if you remember this. You were supposed to do our episode on M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening... Yes. ...in 2016. Sixteen or... Very early in the days of the show.

[00:10:10] It was the first proper director series we ever did. Right. It was really just like five or six episodes into this show as a concept. And so whatever... Is it the village? No, Lady in the Water right before that. Our Lady in the Water episode ends with us

[00:10:25] promising that you will be on next week. And then what... But what happened? It was Griffin's fault. It was my fault. He had set up with you that you would do this, but we didn't actually like check with you that you were available to like week on.

[00:10:40] It was a thing like this where it was like, I may be in New York for a week shooting a thing. And then I sort of like put it on the books without ever double confirming with you. Oh, I see. Yes.

[00:10:53] We had had the conversation where you said yes in principle. Yes. But then... Right. It was absolutely my fault and not yours. But I'm excited to say James Urbaniak is on the show today. Here he is. Seven years after the promise fulfilled. Very nice of you to say.

[00:11:09] It's wonderful to put faces to the voices of producer Ben and of David. Fellow Jersey Boy. You made the Jersey connection with Ben? Fellow Jersey Boy. We discussed New Jersey. Yeah. We have that in common. James, truly people will come up to me

[00:11:22] a couple of times a year and go, are you ever actually going to get James Urbaniak on? Because I've been waiting since that. I must say when I listened to the Fableman's episode and I have a small role in the Fableman's and you mentioned me...

[00:11:33] We shouted you out. And then you mentioned me and you said something like, we have to have him on the show and that made me feel good. Yes. And then you messaged me. I said beyond overdue. And you mentioned that you had been watching

[00:11:44] Buster Keaton movies with your son recently. I have been watching Buster Keaton with my son. Yes. And my son is also a fan of the show. That's swell. We've listened to it together. There are three blank check guests in that scene of the Fableman's? Wait, no, you're not...

[00:11:59] No, because you're in the high school scene. You're in the graduation. I'm in the prom. But there are three blank check guests in the Fableman's. In the film. No, fuck. What am I talking about? What are you talking about? I've lost my mind.

[00:12:10] There's one blank check guest in the Fableman's. I have had a cold. I'm no longer... Well, you can hear it in my voice. There are too many future blank checks. Yes. Little Steven has got to come do the show. I mean, come on. Gabey LaBelle? I'd have him.

[00:12:21] Yeah, Judd Hirsch. Judd Hirsch would be a great guest. Judd Hirsch is doing Old Boy. For the films of Robert Redford. Yes. Obviously. No, it's West Side Story. I was conflating the high school sequences in West Side Story and the Fableman's.

[00:12:35] Well, and indeed there is a similar comedic educator in West Side Story. A principal going like, no, no! Yes, precisely. Who is it in West Side Story? Who's the actor? Well, obviously Rachel Siegler is in that scene and she's been on our show.

[00:12:48] But also Rebecca Bolnus is in that scene in the background dancing. Right. Anyway. And I was about to be like, oh, this is brilliant! Then I realized I'm thinking of two separate auditoriums a year in release apart. But this is the point, James.

[00:13:01] Once again, much like you are one of the great graphic tea wearers, but that is not your only identity. Yes, but a huge part of it. You have tremendous range as a performer, but you are in the canon of the great cinematic principles Thank you.

[00:13:15] Fableman's was just another feather in the cap, but we of course met when you were playing... A high school principal in another film. A less celebrated film. Which was almost the antagonist of the picture. It was you and Jesse McCartney. But where are the guns?

[00:13:28] Oh, your principal Roy! Which I of course play Horny Rob Becker. Yes. And James was the principal. And that's when we met. And I remember the moment when we met on set. You came up to me. You were with some other of the young actors

[00:13:41] and you had a very nice smile on your face and you said, hi! I was a big fan. And I thought, this seems like a friendly person. And then we bonded quite immediately and became pals and hung out a lot. I felt very intimidated by you.

[00:13:53] Because I was a big fan of yours. And it's also like that movie was like inmates running the asylum. It was mostly us dumb young'uns who had so much energy. You know? And none of us had really gotten to be in movies

[00:14:07] or certainly not large roles like that. There were several stars of Tomorrow in that film. Yes. That's what's so weird about that movie. Three future superheroes. It's true. Gigantic cast. Yes. And even just like in some of the small...

[00:14:21] Like Colby Minfey was in a couple scenes of that who's on The Boys now. Sure, you're right. There are just constantly people who pop up in things and I go like, right, that person was in two scenes in Beware of the Gonzo. It was our dazed and confused.

[00:14:33] Yes. In terms of future stars. But there were very few grown-up roles in that movie. And most of us were actually pretty young. It wasn't like 29-year-olds playing high schoolers. How long ago was that? This was 14 years ago? It came out in 2010. Shot in 2009. Because I had children...

[00:14:52] Because this is when... Because for the last 20 years or so, I play quirky authority figures. Yes. I play the grown-up in the room often. Which I feel like you're such a key kind of like Gen X indie film figure. Is it surprising to you?

[00:15:05] You come in today, you look cool as hell. You're wearing a fucking new leaf shirt. But then you show up in something like Fableman's as like the stern, like sort of like self-amused principal. You fit it very well. He's also a middle-aged man from the early 60s.

[00:15:21] So he's a character who's born in like 1917 or something. That's a good point. And as you know, I also have a fondness for old timey times. You love old timey stuff. Was that... Like Buster Keaton. Actually, I have to know.

[00:15:34] What was it like working on a Steven Spielberg film? It was really incredible. He was a total mensch. Yeah. I walked in and it was shooting at an actual high school in LA. It was July. It was like the July prior, not this past July obviously,

[00:15:51] but the one before that. Sure, July 21. It was a hot day. The air conditioning was off, obviously, for sound. Yes. And the room was filled with extras, young people, dressed for the prom. And it looked like Back to the Future. Right.

[00:16:04] Because it's supposed to be the early 60s, which looks like the 50s. Yeah. And then a classic first AD, a tall sort of alpha male sort of Michael Bay type guy walked over to me. You know, very aggressive, but good people skills. You know the type. Yeah.

[00:16:19] There's a certain type of AD. And I'm like, here comes the classic AD. He came... Things happen fast. Very tall, very tall, broad. And he came up to me. He was like, hey James, said his name.

[00:16:31] So just, yeah, we're going to set up for the shot with the group. Let's go on stage. Go up on the stage. So now I'm on the stage. Oh wow, this guy does look like an alpha. There are young people there.

[00:16:40] Are you looking up the Spielberg's first AD? Josh. Josh McLaglen. And there's actors, young actors playing in the band. And there's just tech people running all over. And my first thought was, well, obviously, Mr. Spielberg will be in Video Village. I'll never even meet the man.

[00:16:56] The AD will tell me what to do. Yeah. And then from the back, there he comes. He's wearing a mask. It's still pretty deep COVID. He's wearing a mask, the glasses, the beard, a cap. Wear it. It's hot in there.

[00:17:10] He's wearing a denim jacket over a sweater over a button down. I mean, he throws some bits. Steven Spielberg. Spielberg. There's that tweet. I was trying to find it the other day on Twitter and elephant graveyard where it's impossible to find the things you want.

[00:17:25] When you try to search for anything now, it's like you meant Nazis, right? What are the things that used to bring me joy on this site? Do they still exist here? But there was some tweet that someone posted of like,

[00:17:32] Steven Spielberg always looks like he's wearing every single item of clothing he just got for Christmas at the same time. I know exactly between. Indeed, very layered. Very layered. Right. He's got a lot of kids and grandkids. He probably gets a lot of gifts.

[00:17:45] Just gave him a scarf, a hat, a sweater, a shirt, gloves. And a fanny pack. And a fanny pack, yeah. And so then he came up to me and was super friendly. The first AD said, Steven, this is James, our principal. And he said, hi, James.

[00:17:58] And I said, thanks for having me. And Steven Spielberg said, thanks for being had, which was cute. Very cute. And then just it was just a really good experience. He has that gift that great directors have where he creates an environment that allows things to happen.

[00:18:11] So I feel I'm very happy with myself in that, which is not always the case. But I feel like I'm funny and spontaneous. And I actually get a couple of close ups because I would do takes and he would come out and he would laugh.

[00:18:23] At one point I felt comfortable. So I called him Steven. And I said, Steven, is this working for you? And he said, it is so working. Which was just very nice to hear. You're part of what is in that movie one of my favorite Spielberg camera moves ever.

[00:18:39] Like extended Spielberg shots, which is there's that extended sort of moving one-er that starts with the end of the film being projected, you coming up. Yes. Sort of calling for applause from everyone. Right. And then it pans around to everyone else reacting to this movie as he's disappeared.

[00:18:59] The bully kid sort of like recovering from it. The girl, the redheaded girl he was having the kissing affair with coming up. The other girlfriend coming up to him. Going back to the Christian girlfriend. And I was watching him do all that coverage.

[00:19:12] Also at one point when he was covering Sammy. Yeah. And he was actually saying things like, look over there. Like the jocks. Check out what the jocks think. It was almost like Edward going, walk through the door. Just telling you where to look. Calling it mid-take.

[00:19:25] Calling it during the take because it's like an MOS shot. And then also the camera is coming in on him and that very Spielbergian way. The light from the projector is on his face. And at the end of that shot, Spielberg said, fucking cut. That was beautiful.

[00:19:41] So he's a rascal. But he also like had great what I can only describe as youthful enthusiasm. It also felt like making a Funny or Die video with a 24-year-old guy in 2007 or something. Like we're all doing this thing together. Well, this. Okay. So the thing.

[00:19:58] It shows in his movies he has genuine joy to this day. Like they're so full of joy. They're not like, you know, creaky old whatever. Right. Passes prime energy at all. Yeah. The thing with, but where the Gonzo? The Fableman's of its time.

[00:20:14] Which was also directed by Steve Spielberg. Also known as your best picture best director. Directed by Spielberg under his pseudonym. Yes. But yeah, like Campbell Scott and Amos Tadaris were the main parents.

[00:20:25] But I think they shot all their stuff in like two days and the rest of us didn't interact with them. I forgot they were in it, Frank. Yes. It's small and it was like they shot them out quickly. They were only in one location.

[00:20:35] None of the other kids interact with them. Then there's the diner we would go to in the movie that was the Goodfellas diner that everyone shoots at in Queens. Oh, yeah.

[00:20:43] And the diner owner, the proprietor was this guy, Jerry Grayson, who was like an old sort of Vegas-y comic. Sure. Who plays the manager in Llewyn Davis. Oh, sure. Among other great performers. He was a great character.

[00:20:59] He died right before that movie came out and he was sort of the grouchy diner owner. Kids, get out of my diner. Jerry Grayson. Take my coat. Yes.

[00:21:08] You were like the only other kind of adult that we contended with in the movie when so often it was like the director, the producer, everyone in that movie.

[00:21:16] Basically, the film started and like a week in they realized we have 25% of the budget we need for this movie. So it felt like all, everyone in the crew was scrambling to keep the thing from shutting down.

[00:21:27] And we were all just like, let's try everything we've ever wanted to try as actors. Right, because you're full of joy. We're full of joy and excitement. And we're just trying to keep the thing moving and whatever.

[00:21:38] And then you came in pretty late but had like a number of days and all your scenes are you like catching us in a hallway and going like, you in my office right now. Yeah. The thing with calling students by their surnames. Yes. Mr. Smith, get in here.

[00:21:52] Mr. Becker. Mr. Gonsalves. It's Horny Rob. Principals who call you mister. That is a vibe. But there was that thing that like I was intimidated by you A because I was such a fan of your work but B because you were also playing the stern authoritarian figure. Yes.

[00:22:07] And we are acting so silly every day on set and I'm like, well, now here's a serious actor. And in every scene he's staring me down like he hates me.

[00:22:17] And I feel like I don't remember what it was but at some point there was some reference made by one of us that the other one picked up on. Yes. And we realized like, oh, we have very… We speak the coach. We speak the coach.

[00:22:28] You know when I was at… We have similar reference points. When I was like a 12 year old. We both like weird old timey shit. Yeah. Well, sure. That's more specific. When I was a 12 year old it really was The Simpsons.

[00:22:37] You remember how that used to be a thing where like if you've met someone on like a camping trip or whatever, you know, like… Yeah. And you also knew all The Simpsons references. Yeah. You would immediately be like, okay. I feel like we started talking about Altman somehow.

[00:22:51] You guys were… I don't remember that specifically but that rings true. You were just like here's a little 55 year old in the body of a 21 year old.

[00:22:57] Bruce McCloud's my favorite movie and that came up and then you told me that you were supposed to do the computer movie with Robert Altman? Oh, yes. I was in fact offered to work with Altman twice. Once on a play. Yeah.

[00:23:07] And once on a mini series that Gary Trudeau had written. It was going to be the Tanner 88 Magic again. And then I had actually been offered Sweet and Lowdown. Oh, right. Filmed by W. Allen. Yes. Well denoted filmmaker. Yes.

[00:23:23] And I had committed to that but then I ended up hearing that… What is that? One of the best films of his later career. Yeah. Well, yes. I haven't seen it in a long time. But Altman apparently that mini series fell apart. Right. It was very troubled.

[00:23:40] It was about computers? It was early computer programs. It was early computers. So this would have been late 90s. It was a show called Killer App. Yeah. And the killer app of the title was live video that looked good. This doesn't seem like…

[00:23:53] Which wasn't a thing at the time. No. Sure. Right. Back then it was like real player. There was a scene where like, look at this video and it's a video of someone skateboarding in a parking lot and they go, wow, that looks…

[00:24:04] That's… It's not buffering and it looks really good. And they go, that's Joel. He's in the parking lot right now. That's a killer app already. That was the killer app of the title. That doesn't feel like something Robert Altman would be like. No. It was proto Silicon Valley.

[00:24:19] Right. And, you know, I'm cast sort of to type as a nerdy computer guy. Yeah. What was the play? Then he directed… He directed a later Arthur Miller play. Oh, that is one of the most notorious stage productions. I know. And I was in a reading…

[00:24:38] Moon for the Misbegotten, I believe is the name of the play, right? Well, that's a Eugene O'Neill play. No, no, right. Resurrection Blues. Right. It's not Moon for the Misbegotten. Yes, you're correct. It's Resurrection Blues.

[00:24:47] And I was in a reading and I showed up and I had done the interview with him for the computer show years ago and he remembered me, which was very nice. Yeah. That was also great, like talking to Robert Altman, which was the audition. There was no reading.

[00:25:00] That's like very… For the mini series. …the end of his life, right? It's like 06.

[00:25:04] Yeah. And I remember I was talking to Altman and I said something like, he was very friendly and I made some joke about, I just know what I read in these books about you and guys in the 70s.

[00:25:15] And he said, yeah, well, you hear these stories. I mean, I don't know. Someone wrote about me following Orson Welles in Paris, like stalking Orson Welles in Paris through the streets. And I mean, Orson Welles is fine, but I never thought Citizen Kane was that great.

[00:25:28] Wow. Orson Welles rolling over. Incredible comment from Mr. Altman. But then I got after the reading, and by the way, this never happens. As you know, Griffin, whenever it is a reading, it's an offered job.

[00:25:41] That doesn't happen. So I was actually offered the role I read in New York and then it was another thing where I had some other gig and I couldn't do it. Which only ever happens when there's a thing you really want to do.

[00:25:52] But he offered me two doomed productions. That is interesting. But Resurrection Blues, it was when Kevin Spacey, sorry to invoke his name, took over the old thing. We already evoked Mr. Altman. We did. We're evoking everyone today.

[00:26:05] By the way, The Navigator also has a black face. Go on. A little bit, yes. Took over the old Vic, which is a very, very, very famous old theater in London and became the artistic director.

[00:26:15] And Moon for the Mismagodons is different in his first season. Everything he put on flopped. And the biggest flop was this Resurrection Blues with Nev Campbell. That's right. I remember. That Robert Altman directed. After the company? When he was all in on Nev Campbell?

[00:26:30] Yes, after the company. Exactly. Frankly, I'm sure that would have been a great experience. It might have been very, very interesting. I'd have a lot of stories to tell. Did they even rehearse this? What am I watching? It's also so fascinating.

[00:26:42] People really had their knives out, especially because the celebrity. Now, were you there at the time? I was. I know there's rumors that you lived there at one point. Rumors. Oh my God. Urbanic rating three.

[00:26:55] By the way, I knew a guy in community college who once went to England for like maybe six months. And I hadn't seen him. I won't say his name, but he was a Jersey guy. I'd say his name was Bob. Bob Hosley.

[00:27:11] And he was a nerdy theater guy. You know, a nerdy theater guy from New Jersey who talked like this. And then you could play him in a film when you were younger. I'd love to get this role. I'd love to read for it at the very least.

[00:27:23] Hey, I'm going to do Fiddler. You know when you're young and you refer to plays by one word because it's like industry lingo. So he was a theater dork. He went to England for like six months and I saw him after this and he was talking to someone.

[00:27:39] And that was really quite chuffed because it was quite amazing. And I thought, oh, Bob doing an English accent. It's a classic bit. We all do it. And then he saw me and said, hey, James. And I was like, hey, what's up?

[00:27:52] He goes, oh, I was in England for last year. That's where I got this. And he pointed to himself meaning his accent. That's where I got this is if he's pointing to like a shiner on his face. I can't get rid of it.

[00:28:02] He's wearing like a hat with bananas on it. Now I'm not saying this is a story that David tells about being in England. No, I lived in England for 13 years and I got like a tinge of an accent. I did not start calling him a governor.

[00:28:16] Like yeah, maybe the upward inflection at the end. I get some tea, you know, that thing. Well, I think if I go back there, it does come back a bit. Sure. He says alu-minium. He's been hitting aluminium really hard this miniseries.

[00:28:31] And they're always talking about how chuffed you are. I am so chuffed. Well, he is just chuffed. And I'm always parking my car in the garage and then going to my house and making a big bowl of pasta. Garage sounds like it should be the American pronunciation

[00:28:42] and British should say garage. That's a weird one. The fact that Brits hit the long vowel except for the confusing words where they're like, no. You say pasta with a long A? Well, then we'll say pasta. What's the rule here? Why do they flip it on me?

[00:28:59] Pasta, garage. There's a few others where for some reason they have vitamin. Do you know what's one I've been really obsessed with recently? Yogurt. Yeah, yogurt. They say yogurt like that. They speed it up. Yogurt. Rather than yogurt. I can't explain the twisted minds of these people.

[00:29:17] Then I'll stop asking. I don't know. I have no idea what the other one is. It's so surprising though that your friend would want to lose his Jersey accent, which is a beautiful accent. I agree with you. It's a real cultural signifier people love. People love it.

[00:29:30] It screams worldly. James, you have such a great and distinctive voice that you've done so much great voiceover work like the Venture Brothers, but even just in general as an actor, I feel like it's one of your trademarks. Is it a thing you developed as a performer?

[00:29:48] Did you always sound like this in the middle of New Jersey? Well, I got to tell you, I'll tell you two things. One is when I was a little boy, I was born in 1963.

[00:29:57] So in the late 60s when I was very young, like in first or second grade, a boy came up to me and he said, you sound like Mr. Spock. Wow. And I didn't know what that reference was. How old were you? It wasn't until later. Maybe six. Wow.

[00:30:13] Or seven. That's like when Star Trek is fresh. Like you had just hit air. I guess when I was seven, I was like, do you want to go to the playground and play? You know? Yes. And so, but here's the other thing.

[00:30:24] My parents are both from New Jersey. My dad was born in Bayon. My mother's from Jersey City. They met at a Catholic dance in like Jersey City in the 50s. Anyway, my dad kind of sounds like this. He's got kind of a mild Jersey accent.

[00:30:38] Just a little East Coast edge to his voice. And his default is he's kind of a loud talker. And he calls me, hey Jimmy. Tell me about this podcast you did. This is an impression of my father. My late mother, Maureen, is from Jersey City.

[00:30:54] She had three, she had two sisters. They were three Irish Catholic girls. Yes. And her sisters are lovely, very, very sweet women. Always smiling. But they all, they kind of talk like this. They had fairly strong Jersey City accents, which is similar to the New York accent.

[00:31:14] Just that East Coast twang. And they both, her two sisters talked like that. And my mother told me when I was young, my mother was not a performer, but she wanted to lose that accent. She worked. She worked at not doing it.

[00:31:28] So my mother spoke in a slightly over articulated manner. Yes. Where often with strangers, if she was at the mall, she, excuse me, where's the jewelry store? She had this very precise way of speaking. So I think my voice is a combination of my father's Jersey loudness

[00:31:47] and my mother's very precise sort of articulation. But then you've got the preciseness. But then I also am from the tri-state area. I'm from Jersey. So my whole life I've had tells. Like I said, huge my whole life. Like Donald Trump. Back me up, producer Ben.

[00:32:04] There's a certain areas of Jersey in New York. You don't do the sound. It's just a Y. You also say humor. And I still say humor. Anika. Anika. Celebrate Anika. You have a lot of chutzpah. Yes. So I have certain tells like that.

[00:32:21] Also there's an episode of Mad Men where Don Draper hires a secretary named D-A-W-N. And someone says, isn't that going to be confusing? Don and Don. And I turned to my wife and said, how is that confusing? You didn't get the joke. And you just said Don,

[00:32:36] which is how you say that word. But I'm overselling it now. A lot of people in America pronounce both of those the same. Don and Don. Don is breaking. Yes. I just got to that episode in my big couch. And I literally turned to my wife

[00:32:49] who kind of grew up all over but is not from Jersey or New York. I said, what are they talking about? She's like, well, not everyone says Don. But this is the thing. I think as performers you start to get very self-conscious about that. I don't know.

[00:33:05] I never thought of myself as having any sort of New York affect on my accent. And there was a thing, the villain on the tick in the first season was the character was named The Terror. Yes. And we got to this scene where I just was like,

[00:33:18] I cannot say this. Like, I will stop you, The Terror. Yeah, every time was coming out like that. And I'm like, I don't think I sound like a Bowery boy usually. Right. But then I was overselling The Terror. Yeah, then you sound like a British guy

[00:33:33] trying to sound American. Right. So I do think there's that overcorrection thing. I remember you telling me once that Tony Randall was sort of like your gold standard as a performer. 100%. Huge influence. And it made a ton of sense.

[00:33:45] But I feel like he has that kind of thing where it's like, what a honed voice. You know? Like what specific diction he has. Yes. And I forget where he grew up. Yeah. But he's an American person. Yes. He's Jewish, but he developed this sort of Waspie persona.

[00:34:03] Yes. Right. Right. So he has that outsider sense of the Wasp, blue blood speak. And he had a corner on that kind of quality. Yeah. I loved him. And also his work in the 50s is, he makes Jim Carrey look like a master of subtlety. Like Buster Keaton.

[00:34:21] Yeah. Yeah. One of the great underplayers. Yes. Because Tony Randall goes very over the top in some of those comedies in the 50s. Yes. In a wonderful way, I mean. Yes. I mean, this is one of the reasons. You're just talking a lot of diction,

[00:34:32] considering it's a silent movie podcast. I know. I know. Well, here's the thing, James, you have always been one of my favorite people to talk about acting with, which is very often a very difficult thing to talk about. Huge topic with me. I love actors.

[00:34:45] I love the history of acting and the styles of acting. You speak about it very well in a very unpretentious way, because I think often people who are actors have a hard time verbalizing, you know? Even if they understand their own technique,

[00:34:59] it's hard to really talk about it from an outside looking in perspective. And you've always been very sort of, you will very directly and sightfully hit upon the key to someone's performance style or their technique or their persona. And so you messaged me and said,

[00:35:20] it was very sweet to hear you guys call me out in the Fableman's episode, and I said, beyond overdue to get you, beyond overdue to get you on, am I wrong in assuming you're a Buster Keaton fan? And you said, just watch Sherlock Jr. with my son.

[00:35:33] And I went, this is someone I want to hear talk about Buster Keaton as a performer. We've had people on from different perspectives in this mini series, attacking him from different ways. But I really, and we haven't had this conversation,

[00:35:47] and so we're very curious to hear you talk about him as someone who always loves hearing you talk about any actor. Especially movie stars. And I think there's something about, in your premiere episode with Ms. Stevens, friend of the show, whose book is excellent, by the way,

[00:36:04] which I also read, you talk about how he has this sort of uncanny modern quality where of like the great, the holy trio of Harold Lloyd and Chaplin. And I love Lloyd and Chaplin, by the way, as I know you do too. Feel more of their moment.

[00:36:19] There's something weirdly timeless about Keaton's comedy, which you've discussed on the show. But I think it's also his performing style. Because that very understated style where you can accuse Chaplin of sentimentalizing and Chaplin of sort of acting cute. Harold Lloyd is sort of playing a regular guy.

[00:36:43] Which is very funny and still works, he's like a regular guy. But Keaton's not really a regular guy. No, he's an irregular guy. And Keaton also, there's a danger because it's hard not to use academic language when you discuss him.

[00:36:58] Like, it's very easy when you're talking about Keaton to talk about like the spatial temporal dialectic of, you know, whatever. And he was so pointedly unpretentious when he talked about his own work. Exactly. It's funny or it's not. But there is a sort of modern man,

[00:37:12] all caps, quality to that persona. There's an almost existential or zen-like thing that he emanates that people respond to and that is very timeless. And his performing is very streamlined. Yes. Which I think of as a modern thing. It's clean lines, his directing style as well.

[00:37:32] And that just, it's modern. It's like Helvetica font. Yes. It's just modern. Which Helvetica was a response to like the ornate German typography during World War I. It's basically Helvetica is an anti-Nazi font. You're talking about, and it's also, it's the font of the New York City subway.

[00:37:50] It's my favorite font of all time. Right, but that's modern because it's clean and streamlined. And he's got that modern quality in the teens, which I guess you could say is the beginning of like a modern era in art and literature, you know? 20th century.

[00:38:08] So there's just something about his style that because it's so clean and unaffected and anti-sentimental and even, I don't know, I wouldn't say it's emotionless, but have you read Walter Kerr's wonderful book, The Silent Clowns? No. Great book. Walter Kerr was a writer and critic.

[00:38:28] I think his book is probably from the 60s. You'd love it. It's a wonderfully written book about that era. He writes about Keaton. You've got the, you know, Laurel and Hardy on this cover here. Oh, he's a really great, and he's a great writer,

[00:38:41] but I was reading his chapters on Keaton before I came in and he actually has a great description where he talks about Keaton's serenity and he doesn't mean happiness. He means a kind of serene resignation to the catastrophes that affect him. But also, he just draws your eye

[00:39:04] with how still he can be in some scenes and like how subtle his face is that you are so drawn to just what is he going to do next? And because he's, in a sense, he's the ultimate non-indicator. Yeah. That's what I was going to say.

[00:39:22] It's like silent film is so much actors needing to develop this new vocabulary of how do you communicate emotions when you don't have dialogue and you don't have voice, right? Yes. And there's another thing which interests me about the history of acting,

[00:39:36] which is if you look at silent films and early talkies or movies from the 30s, there will be streams of acting that are happening simultaneously. Because there are people who haven't figured it out yet. The conventions haven't been established. It's almost like a Tesla Edison thing

[00:39:50] where you're watching people experiment with what is the best way to communicate. So, you will see, like, King Vidor's The Crowd has really naturalistic acting in it. Maybe the greatest film ever made. And that's the one where the couple have the argument

[00:40:06] and he's like, and it's all played very real. It's also The Sims family in The Crowd and the male hero is called John Sims, which is my dad's name. Incredible. Yes. I wonder why they have those weird green diamonds above their head. And Homer Simpson is a character

[00:40:20] in Nathaniel West's Day of the Locusts. There's nothing new. My favorite thing about The Crowd is The Crowd is one of my favorite movies ever. It's an incredible movie. It's the film I'm maddest I did not put in my top 10 at the Sight and Sound.

[00:40:32] And Godard in the 60s was asked, like, why don't you make more films about ordinary people? And he famously said, like, The Crowd has already been made. Why would I remake it? But the acting in The Crowd hasn't...

[00:40:44] A lot of the acting in that movie hasn't dated a second. It's just naturalistic and very finely observed. And obviously there's a top-down decision to present things like that from the director. And there are other movies from that same year where there's a semaphore,

[00:40:57] there's a pageantry to the acting. Yes. There's an indicating quality where fingers are being waved in the air and that's a stream that coexisted. Then that stream for sort of dramatic acting dried up. Right. It stopped. That kind of indicating acting still exists in comedy today. Yes.

[00:41:14] Because there's an indicating quality to comic acting. I think it's actually... It's surged again. Yeah. That's also the kind of acting that if I told you, you know, act like you're in a silent movie, you might... And we have the stock ideas

[00:41:30] that that's what silent movie acting is. But it isn't. And obviously Keaton isn't doing that at all. No one is. His female leads are never like that either. They're always very natural. I was taking with... Oh, totally. Rewatching Sherlock Jr. Jump ahead a little bit,

[00:41:44] but just on this stream of conversation... We're not jumping ahead. We're like two hours into this episode. It's a good episode. It's a fucking corker. Sherlock Jr. But there's the incredible sequence where... Sure, you're talking ahead of the film. Within the movie in a movie, right? Yes.

[00:41:58] Where the romantic rival, the classic Keaton big guy competitor for the love... Yes. The chic. The chic. Yes. And his partner are rigging up all these traps to try to knock out Sherlock. Yes. And it's an incredible sequence, but those two guys are absolutely doing

[00:42:17] what most people think of as silent film acting. They are so heavily made up. Yeah. They are really wagging their eyebrows and over-emoting and over-expressing. And it helps the scene. Oh, it does. But you're watching it, it only puts in more stark contrast

[00:42:32] how modern a performer Keaton is because he's doing sort of a form of new Hollywood, neorealistic acting decades before that's going to become de rigueur, let alone before dialogue and sound is being put into these movies. He's acting like a talkie actor,

[00:42:54] but he's using the fact that you can't hear what he's saying to his advantage. And it's amazing because it's all... As we all know, he's basically been in show business since he came out of the womb. Yeah. And he grew up in vaudeville,

[00:43:10] and you know, in medicine shows. Yes. And he's coming of age as the technology is coming. And he's also watching people like Houdini from the wings. Yes. I love that his family were pals with Houdini. That's such a great... He really was.

[00:43:23] But then when he transfers to movies, his performances are so filmic. It's just all about owning... He got it. He got the difference. Owning it on screen. Right. And he gets what can be subtle and small. Yes. One of my favorite bits in Sherlock Jr.

[00:43:41] is when he's like, I lost a dollar. He's like, describe it. James? Little gestures like rectangle. Apparently there were eagles on the back of the dollar. It is my single favorite Buster Keaton bit of all time. Right at the start of the movie, basically.

[00:43:54] Because the callback when first he asks a woman to describe it and she shows the shape of the dollar with her hands and a little eagle flap thing. And then later someone else comes and he's like, oh, rectangle. He does it great.

[00:44:07] Which is always funny when someone picks up. But that's also a very throwaway bit. It is. And that's what makes it so funny is how underplayed it is. For how much... Obviously the bits that get talked about so much are the incredible stunts

[00:44:20] or the incredible feats of movie magic, right? This is just a little bit of behavioral comedy 100%. That so indicates this guy's entirely bizarre specific worldview. His perception of the world is sort of unfolded in this moment where you go like, wait, what does this guy think?

[00:44:39] What is his internal track of logic? He understands that if someone comes and says they lost something you need to have them describe it. What color was your scarf? Yes. What pattern was on your hat? What material was it made out of? Whatever.

[00:44:55] And he's doing the same thing but with United States currency that is uniform. He's also scheming someone because he doesn't want to give the dollar away because he needs it to buy the candy. But it speaks to his innate, you know... JJ got that good candy.

[00:45:10] JJ pulled this up in his research and he was sort of pushing back on it a little bit but like Keaton said, you know, the Chaplin tramp character was in it for himself. He did what he needed to do to survive to get by.

[00:45:23] You know, there was a lack of scruples, you know, and he could sometimes find some joy in getting the better of someone. And you can point out a bunch of examples where Keaton breaks his own rule in this sense but he was like fundamentally,

[00:45:35] I tried to make my character an honest guy, you know, who kind of can't do the wrong thing. And in that moment it's like there was a reason he could use this money. It would be so easy for him to keep the money.

[00:45:47] The thing he's asking them to prove as a test that it is their money actually makes no sense. It doesn't prove anything and he still concedes it and goes like what am I going to do? And that's part of that serenity thing. He does concede.

[00:46:02] So if a house falls on him and he lives, he's like oh, I guess a house fell on me. I guess I don't have a house anymore. I guess I don't have a house anymore. And he sort of serenely resigned in his way.

[00:46:16] It's like the greatest sort of tiny encapsulation of his comedic sensibility for me is that moment. And the other thing is that, this is a great point you're making, and the other thing is his character is practical. His character is always, there's a situation here.

[00:46:30] How can I fix this situation? It's delightful when Chaplin makes whatever, Potatoes Dance, but Keaton wouldn't do that because it's not practical. No, it's showy. It's showy and Keaton's like what's the problem? How can I solve it? Or whimsical or whatever. And then of course Buster Keaton,

[00:46:49] the director and performer loves the mechanics of things and so he also reduces himself to a mechanical object. And then, so there's a wonderful kind of, there's like a real mechanic sort of almost math-oriented approach. Frankly, if you'll allow me, I think he is a little Kubrickian.

[00:47:11] Yeah, because he's such a highly technical and takes so long. And once he's making features, there's a wonderfully formal sense of framing and there's a coolness where it saves, and I'm not saying either these are good or bad, they're apples and oranges, but Chaplin is very, very warm

[00:47:29] and Keaton is very cool. Which, you know, the emotions are more under the surface. No, it's true. In Chaplin, the emotions are right at the surface. So there's a history of like, yeah, the Coen brothers, Wes Anderson. There's a certain kind of rigorous control of the frame.

[00:47:42] Anderson's like deeply influenced by Keaton. And that rigorous control can also be very funny, which also Kubrick understands. But it's like it's setting the frame, the tension is in the frame itself. And so if things are disrupted... Yes. And then these small moments also,

[00:47:59] but that's such a great point because he's so good at the tiny throwaway moments. And he's also like fucking James Cameron as an action director. He's the whole package. The other thing is that bit with the dollar bill and the lost wallet, right? It's like...

[00:48:12] It's the beginning of the movie. He's just set up. He's a projectionist at a movie theater. He's also a budding detective. And he's the all purpose workman in the theater. He also has to sweep it. He does it all.

[00:48:24] Yes, and the original title of this movie was The Misfit. And that's a bit of a misfit. Yeah. But yes, but he wants to buy his girl some candy. There's a candy shop next door. And they have cheap candy and they have candy for a dollar

[00:48:40] and they have candy for four dollars. Four dollar candy. And he wants to impress her with the good stuff. For 1925, that's some pricey candy. Forget it. It's like 50 bucks or whatever. It truly is. That's like gold leaf. That's like... Yeah, exactly. It's fancy ass candy.

[00:48:55] Yeah, fancy ass candy. That kind of phrase. You know, you get some diamond tweezers to eat it with. And he finds a dollar in the garbage. And this is part of his duties. People take out their wallets or whatever and assume that this is a normal thing.

[00:49:09] This is one of the perks of being the janitor. Now and then he'll find some money on the floor. Right, which once again, Chaplin would not only not hesitate for a moment to pocket the money, he would pull the wallet out of the back pocket of someone. Yes.

[00:49:23] Right? Because it's like... That's right. The Tramp is a bit of a scoundrel, but Keaton isn't a scoundrel. And I think the Tramp is so much a character living in the wake of the Great Depression, right? It's this idea of like he represents the desperation... Yes.

[00:49:40] ...in America of just like whatever it takes, right? Like whereas... Buster is up against what's coming next. He's up against modernism, technology coming to his face. Let me give you some context. Please. Just so we can have a little bit of context on Sherlock Jr.

[00:49:58] It was called The Misfit. It's eventually obviously changed to Sherlock. His first two junior titles. Yes. And there's a satiric play apparently called Merton of the Movies. Okay. Which Keaton had seen and had a bit of this vibe. Alliteration is always good for a title.

[00:50:14] Everyone has that in his favor. But I guess it's really just about like, you know, I think that may have given him the idea for like a story set around a movie theater and maybe the meta idea that he then gets to.

[00:50:27] Sure. Which obviously doing it on film is going to hit very differently than doing it on the stage. Apparently Keaton never met an idea he didn't like. Wow. Thanks. The door is there. You know, it's easy. You can let yourself out.

[00:50:43] Obviously, as he has said, his best quote about this movie I feel like is that the reason for making the whole picture is the dream sequence. That is what it is. And a lot of them were, there were magic bits

[00:50:55] that he knew from vaudeville, from Houdini and other magicians. And apparently he was like, well, the only way to sell that in a movie is for that to be a dream sequence. Right. Because he needed everything to be grounded in the real world.

[00:51:06] This is what I love is like, you know, some of the early films you have stuff like The Lion and the stop motion dinosaur, the things that are more as he calls it cartoon gags. Right. And as his career evolves, he goes like, you lose the audience.

[00:51:18] If you're, if you're, it's not a short, it's a feature and you really need to care about the characters and invest in the stakes. Those kinds of gags break the reality and you don't, you lose the audience. Even if they laugh at that.

[00:51:28] Famously, there was a sequence in The Navigator that he cut because it was just pure gag. Yeah. Which we can discuss later. Yeah. And even stuff like the waterfall in Our Hospitality. It's like, I, that you can impress an audience,

[00:51:40] but it's sort of like you win the battle, you lose the war maybe in terms of the larger strength of the film at whole. And then this is the movie where he cracks upon like, can you set up this reality versus fantasy? Dichotomy where the fantasy exists

[00:51:56] as an extension of reality. So you're still keeping the same narrative threads. You're still keeping the emotion and the tension, but you're suddenly giving yourself the leeway for the middle 25 minutes of the movie. To do any of the cartoon gags you want.

[00:52:09] Right, because now you're in a fantasy world. Yeah. Of sorts. Anything can happen in a movie. Um, the most famous behind the scenes thing about this movie obviously is that Roscoe, Paddy, Mark Buckle, was brought on as a co-director or whatever, as a sort of, you know, contributor.

[00:52:25] Uh, and he joins the picture and the way Buster relates it in his memoir is basically that he was just not funny anymore. Like he'd been so washed up and ruined... Yeah. This is post his... Post the trial. Yeah.

[00:52:40] Um, and clearly Keaton was sort of trying to like, you know, throw his old friend, uh, you know, some help. Yeah. Uh, and this is the movie where he came up with William B. Goodrich, which was his like nom de plume for directing, uh, Paddy R. Buckle.

[00:52:55] The joke being, we'll be good. Yes. Well, I will be good this time. Uh, right. Can I just read quickly? Because Dana did so much table setting for us on, uh, both the first main fit episode and the Patreon episode.

[00:53:06] The one thing I forgot to bring up with her and I emailed her for the follow-up was, because we should just acknowledge it, uh, we're doing this series on the films of Buster Keaton as a director. On most of these films he has accredited co-director.

[00:53:19] Yes. Although usually he hated them. And fought with them and sort of would fire them or run roughshod over them. Right. Very often it was the studio would say, we want someone reigning you in. We want someone who's sort of got their eye on the ball.

[00:53:33] We'd be like, this guy ain't funny. Right. And he would sort of find a way to make them quit. But Dana just wrote very concisely, uh, basically all you need to know is that he used a co-director on many of his independently produced films

[00:53:44] in order to have someone stand behind the camera while he was in front of it. Makes sense. In our modern sense of the term, he was still the director. Most of them came from his stable of regular gag writers.

[00:53:52] A few were put in the slot by Joe Skank. But whether or not BK gets credit or co-credit as a director, if it's a movie made by a studio between 1920 and 1928, it's his ideas being executed on screen. Right.

[00:54:05] I think part of it was the studio wanting someone to mitigate, but also part of it was him being like, sometimes I just need a guy to sit in the chair. Sometimes I want to focus on the gag

[00:54:15] and I need someone who's actually communicating my wishes to the crew. And the ones he worked well with were the guys who had no ego about it, understood, I'm sort of a means of communication for his ideas. Yes. Anytime anyone came in with their own ideas,

[00:54:30] he'd basically get them to quit. Right, exactly. He'd be a pain in the ass. Yes, he'd be a pain in the ass. Now, according to Buster, it was Roscoe who was like, irritable and impatient and snapping at people and yelling at people and was no fun.

[00:54:42] And they essentially, according to Buster Keaton, conspired to get him a different job on a different movie. Okay. Called The Red Mill. Now, historians have been like, the movie The Red Mill can't have been it because that came out like three years later. Sure.

[00:54:55] So maybe Buster's memory is not perfect on that. But clearly they got rid of him. Yeah. But that does not hang over the movie really in any way, obviously. Yeah. So that's all going on now. Sherlock Jr. Yeah. I do think it's his best film.

[00:55:11] It has become his most popular film on things like the sight and sound list and all that. I feel like it's supplanted the general. Yes. As sort of the critic consensus perfect Keaton movie. When did you first see it, Old Griffey? When did I first see it?

[00:55:25] I think I must have seen it in the sort of previously discussed high school TCM Buster Keaton marathon. But then I remember my very, very brief tenure at film school, California Institute of the Arts. I had a teacher named Gary Mayers who taught a seminar, film history class.

[00:55:45] And there was the one week that was, you know, the greats of silent comedy. And he played Chaplin's 2 AM, which for my money is still the best thing I've ever seen. Chaplin ever did over his features. I don't know if either of you have ever seen that.

[00:56:00] No, never. I think you mean 1 AM. I'm sorry. Yes, I do. Yes, yes, yes, yes. I have heard of it. Never. That's a very old. Yeah. That's like one of the first non tramp movies. Yeah. He's playing someone else.

[00:56:12] And it's, it's, it's he's, he's playing a sort of a rich, stuffy lush, but it's, it's more Keaton-y and it's a directing style and it is just this lush, coming back home from a night out on the town in his carriage,

[00:56:28] back to his mansion and he cannot get upstairs. Right. He is so drunk he cannot get upstairs. And when Chaplin started out in vaudeville in England, his first character was called the inebriate. That was his. He was a drunk guy. He does drunk better than anybody.

[00:56:41] Was his sort of immediate foot in the door. But it's just like 20 minutes of every possible gag of Chaplin not being able to make it upstairs. And most of it plays in this big wide shot where there's this royal staircase that goes down on both sides.

[00:56:55] So he can go up one and overshoot it and fall down the other and all of that. And then they played Sherlock Jr. And it was one of the movies that this, you know, Professor Gary Mears said, there are certain movies I'm screening as part of this series

[00:57:07] that I even think a lot of you will have seen before, but I think it is important to specifically have seen them in a theater. Certain movies just play differently. And he was like, you can watch Rear Window at home and appreciate it. You've talked about that, right?

[00:57:22] It was him saying in a theater it's different. It was a completely transformative experience for me. And Sherlock Jr. was a similar thing where I was like, I watched that, I'm going through my Buster Keaton checklist. It's very good, obviously. Sure.

[00:57:34] But seeing it up on a big screen because of that moment where you watch him enter into it. He goes into the movie, guys. He goes into the fucking movie. It's the big thing that happens in the movie.

[00:57:43] So then that was like the moment where I went like, oh, this is one of the best things ever made. This is basically on par with anything ever created in this medium. And do you remember moments in that getting laughs from the crowd?

[00:57:58] Like, is that a memory you have? That's a good question. Yes. No, I do. Because it was that thing too of just like... That is the most laugh out loud part of the movie when it keeps changing, the background keeps changing. But even this opening dollar bit.

[00:58:10] Yeah, well, the dollar bit's so funny. But like, because that's so early on, right? And in a situation like that, you know, you do, even at film school when people are serious minded, you do come up against the thing, the dreaded thing,

[00:58:23] of audiences who think they are hipper than the old films they're seeing at a repertory theater. Laughing at them because they're antiquated or odd, right? Or heightened in tone or style. And it's not like a silent comedy playing poorly

[00:58:40] for a young audience isn't going to play with them laughing derisively. It's going to play with them not laughing at all and being like, this is lame. This isn't funny. Right? This is going to be awkward and shifty. Or I'm just watching this through a historical perspective.

[00:58:52] This is just understanding context of film history. Right. And Buster uses so few intertitles. He talked about that, that like, in this day, the average silent film had about 250 intertitles. And he never went above 55 in any movie. That's also a good, because some of my favorite small moments

[00:59:14] are moments where people are talking and it's clear what they're saying. Just from context and occasionally from seeing their lips. And you don't need the title and it's funnier that way. Yes, yes, absolutely. Like I, I, the titles sort of if there's 250, even though it's, it's interminable.

[00:59:30] Like it just makes the movie feel so, so, so staged. He mostly does it for table setting. Yes. Establishing who the characters are. Right. Yeah. It's for major plot stuff. This dollar bit has, I mean, it's probably why this is so stuck in my head

[00:59:44] as like the moment for me. Uh, she comes up, she goes, I lost a dollar. He takes it out. He looks down at it. He looks over his shoulder, like hides it away so she can't see. Right? And then he sort of snaps back at her.

[00:59:59] And it's one of the only times he sort of gets a little like... He's considering being a rascal. He has a little attitude. Yes. Like I don't know if I trust you. And you see him bark something at her

[01:00:08] and then the title comes up that just says, describe it. Period. A great line. Right? And I just remember that getting a huge laugh and suddenly the whole audience being in on it. Yeah. And sort of settles down and is like, okay, okay, wait a second.

[01:00:20] Right. And the setup of this one is just so simple because as in... As opposed to most Buster movies, and Navigator is a perfect example of this, where it's like there is a thing that either his love interest demands he do to prove his masculinity, his maturity,

[01:00:37] his stability to her, or he takes on or finds himself accidentally in some world he doesn't quite understand to try to prove himself to her. This one is just he wants to show her that he likes her. He doesn't understand that he's not,

[01:00:53] that he's maybe at a disadvantage. Right? He's sort of oblivious to the rivalry to a certain degree. But it's just he likes her. He wants to find the right way to show her. And the stakes of that are so simple. He's hapless. He's hapless. No hap. He's hapless.

[01:01:13] He doesn't have any hap. What is... His hap game is quite simple. Why is that a word? His hap game is weak. Hapless. Yeah. What is... From hap, the Middle English for good fortune. Nary a hap, you might say. It's a way to describe Buster Keaton's persona.

[01:01:30] He is somewhat hapless. And then the guy, right, he gives away his money. Someone else comes and sifts through the garbage and gets lots of money. An old lady exploits her old ladiness to garner sympathy from him. So much money lying around that trash can.

[01:01:46] A bully finds a whole wallet. A bully rejects... Then that's a great also follow-up where a big bruiser comes along and Keaton's just like, here's a dollar. Just fucking gives it to him. And then the other thing that Keaton always does...

[01:02:01] Keaton is great at the Simpsons-style plus joke. Yes. There's the joke and then there's the joke on top of that. You think it's over. And he does that kind of thing consistently. There's always an added joke. I've definitely said this before in the podcast at some point.

[01:02:15] But I remember Kamil Nanjiani saying in some interview, you go into these meetings when you're trying to develop a screenplay, especially for a comedy, and everyone talks about these save-the-cat moments and how to make a character likable and sympathetic. Right? And he was just like, for a comedy,

[01:02:29] I feel like the opening of any comedy movie should be a guy accidentally spilling hot coffee on himself. That's when I relate to a guy. Maybe an intern dropping a whole case full of them? That was too much though. Too much coffee.

[01:02:43] Because then the audience didn't like Kevin Costner. I was the most sympathetic because I dropped 12 cups of coffee. Costner is actually so mean to you in that movie. Incredibly mean. I mean, obviously he apologizes. Yeah, he's the villain of the piece. Okay, so he buys his suite.

[01:02:57] This is what I'm saying is that Buster just starts out and he's under the boot. Everything's fucking him over. He's hapless. At one point, I think he has maybe $4 on him. By the end of this sequence, he's only got the one.

[01:03:08] He gets the bruiser the dollar and the guy's like, I don't want your dollar. The guy looks for two seconds, finds a wallet full of cash. And walks off. And that's life, man. I feel like I'm the guy that never finds the wallet.

[01:03:20] We are all the guy who doesn't find the wallet. But this is my point. As much as he talks about, I don't try to manufacture audience sympathy, right? This movie starts and everyone goes like, I have at some point felt the way this guy feels at this moment.

[01:03:33] Yes, absolutely. No, and he has the great gift of having us. He draws you to him without asking you to lean into him. He just has that mysterious, ineffable management of energy that makes you lean into him. He doesn't indicate that you need to do the work

[01:03:51] to try to figure out what's going on in his head. Because he's not going to necessarily spell it out to you. It is sad though that he, you know, it's poignant that he buys this dollar chocolate and then he writes it to get a four.

[01:04:04] Turns the one to a four. And then of course it ends up backfiring. Sealing his fate in that particular situation. As he's set up later. Yes, so the setup is, and it is complicated. The villainous Sheik steals the debt's pocket watch,

[01:04:19] pawns it for four bucks, buys a three dollar box of chocolates, and then puts the pawn ticket into his, you know, four dollar box of chocolates. And the Sheik's so named because a la Rudolf Valentino. The Sheik doesn't have any money either. He's a player. He's a fuckboy.

[01:04:35] He's a fuckboy. He is. He's talking about how modern these films are. He doesn't have any money. Buster understood the fuckboy a century before. But he's, he's, he's not here. He has a cool mustache. He's more overtly masculine. Yes. He's kind of better dressed. Yeah, he's better dressed.

[01:04:53] He's played by Ward Crane, right? I mentioned him. Ward Crane, a great monosyllabic name. I quite like that. Really good. Good actor name. Ward Bond is also a good act. Ward name. Always good to have a monosyllabic last name if your first name is Ward.

[01:05:08] Ward Bond, you know, he's Bert the Cop, right? They, they, they, they, they're out. Yeah. Also, Buster's dad is playing the dad, right? Yes. The dad of the sweetie. Yes. And Catherine McGuire plays the cop. Catherine McGuire, who I think is very good in the movie. I agree.

[01:05:22] She's very natural. She's very game. She was very sweet. They have a thing about her. They have a thing about her. They have a thing about her. They have a thing about her. They have a thing about her. She was very, very small.

[01:05:32] She was like five feet tall, maybe. Yeah. So she reads well against Buster, I think. Yeah. But she struggled generally because she was too small. How, how tall was he? He's like five-five. He's very short. All right. Because she actually, for some reason,

[01:05:41] but she's, she has a willowy quality. So she reads as tall. Yes. And she was a dancer. Mm. That was how she was trained. And you can kind of see that. Physical control. She's very game for the physical stuff. Yes. The, the deck chair bit in The Navigator.

[01:05:55] Right. Where she's unconscious is actually really funny in that scene. But here's, here's like a, a thing that I think is so smart in the Sherlock Jr. construction, which is why it's like his perfect vehicle. Rather than being this outside societal pressure. Right.

[01:06:10] You need to become a soldier. You need to join the army. You need to learn this trade. I, you know, you need to become a... You need to battle the Alabama murderer. Right. This is a future episode. Right. It's just, he loves mystery novels. He does.

[01:06:23] Right. He's reading them. This is just his own inner life. He's reading about how to be a detective. His passion. And then he realizes, oh, I'm in the type of setup. There is a mystery now. I am the one who's been framed. Right.

[01:06:34] I need to use the thing that I'm reading. So you have, I mean, it's like a really, you know, without having to do intertitles, you're able to cut into the book with its sort of numbered list of how to crack a case. And you understand the steps of

[01:06:51] what is he reading he should do next? And how is he going to, if not misinterpret it, heighten it to a weird degree. Shadow your man. Right. In his mind, that means you have to literally do every single thing this guy does. Yes. One behind him. Close walk.

[01:07:10] Two seconds behind. He also loves the close walking thing. He does it in other movies too. It's so good. But like, you get to, you know, he's puffing on this cigarette, unaware that Buster's behind him. He throws the cigarette over his shoulder.

[01:07:21] Buster catches the cigarette, starts puffing at it. That is such an incredible gag because you just don't understand how he catches it. No. And yet he catches it so seamlessly. Ward Crane is also very good in the stalking scene, in the shadowing scene. Yes.

[01:07:35] Because his physicality is great and they're... He's like six inches tall. Yeah. And they're paralleling each other just in terms of their step and cadence. When they both trip at the same moment. It's really good. And by the way, he's not reading a mystery novel.

[01:07:46] It is an instruction. You're right. And it's actually the first joke in the movie which I love. It's actually one of my favorite film jokes. Yeah. Which is we see a master shot of him in the back of the theater by himself.

[01:07:56] And then they're close up and he's reading a book titled How to Be a Detective. Which I think is really funny. It is very funny. After that title, it's like some people try to do two things even though you're not supposed to.

[01:08:05] And then he takes the book down and he does a fake mustache. And then he puts his fingerprint on the book. Yeah. He licks his thumb to make a print. So he's got two tools already. A disguise and a magnifying glass. But... He's set.

[01:08:20] He gets hoisted by his own petard because it's the guy reads the book. Yeah. And the book says search everyone. Right. And so the guy gets him into detective mode and then, you know, then they're like, well, we have to search you too.

[01:08:30] Yeah, because Rashik has stolen the wallet of the father. He's stolen the watch. The watch, rather. And he's put the pawn ticket onto Buster. Yes. And so when they search Buster, they find the ticket. Yeah, he pawned it and he pawned it for four bucks.

[01:08:42] He bought candy for four bucks. And Buster wrote four on a chocolate rice. How else could you have gotten $4 on that? So he is exiled. In 1924. It's like his one kind of innocent lie is the thing that does him in,

[01:08:53] which is he pretends he spent more money than he did because he doesn't want to be embarrassed. He pushes the boundaries of ethics. Right, whereas the other guy is four times as dishonest. He's a cad, a fuckboy. The end of the shadowing gag where he's following this guy

[01:09:11] is so funny because the guy stops and turns around and looks at him as they've reached a Pacific train or whatever and Buster just has to go like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. But it sounds like he's angry a little bit. Like he's like, get out of my way.

[01:09:25] He's like, I'm trying to board this. Yeah, here I am. And the guy just immediately locks him in there and this is where we have the gag that almost killed poor Buster Keating. Yes, then the first spectacular physical sequence of the film.

[01:09:36] Which is this, yeah, this big water. First he's walking on top of the train. Yes, he's walking on the car. And staying kind of like perfectly positioned in the frame. In the middle, yeah. This is the Wes Anderson thing.

[01:09:48] And using the water thing to like leap over the train. You talk about clean lines in his performance style but also in his shooting style. Like this whole gag works on him constantly being dead center in the frame.

[01:09:59] And he has to maintain dead center of the frame in a wide shot by keeping a very consistent speed. The amount, so eventually the train is gone and so he's holding onto this thing and it spews water and it knocks him down.

[01:10:11] The amount of water that comes out is so comical. You assume it had to be a joke and instead you read, no, like no one knew that much water was going to come out. And it pulverized him. He literally breaks his neck, finishes the shot which has

[01:10:25] two other guys coming along. He runs around, yeah. Two other guys drive by and get wet and then they get mad at him and they chase him into the distance. And then he's like, okay, moving on. There is this thing.

[01:10:39] And then years later he finds out he was seriously injured. You wonder if he was like... He found it 14 years later. He's unbreakable. I was going to say, he's like David Dunn. Yes, he's like David Dunn. But it was many years later someone took an x-ray of him

[01:10:52] and was like you have broken your, like at some point you broke your neck. There's a callus over your vertebra. This healed poorly. And so, yeah, I mean that's... The title card says as a detective he was all wet. Funny. Very punny. That's the other thing.

[01:11:08] He'll use, if he uses intertitles, it's often for a joke that can only be done verbally but a joke that is from sort of the omniscient narrator of the film. Not dialogue within the story. Someone in our Reddit posted a clip from The Frozen North

[01:11:24] which is one of his old shorts in which he is like some sort of, you know, frontiersman who comes back to a cabin. I think that's sort of his Nanook of the North parody. It's... The joke is insane.

[01:11:35] He sees like a woman sitting with a man at a fireplace. He looks furious and he shoots both of them. Yes. Then walks over and goes... Then the title card says, wait, this isn't my wife. And it's like such a dark joke. Yes.

[01:11:47] Very funny but obviously the title card actually does contain the entire joke. And later in the film, when he's Sherlock Jr. in the movie within the movie, his assistant is named Gillette and Gillette's title card says, Gillette, a gem who was ever ready in a bad scrape.

[01:12:05] And Gillette, as you know, was a razor company. But Ever Ready and Gem were also razor companies at the time. Oh, that's... So you have three... That's over my head. ...at bad scrapes. So you had some razor punning just for a little extra. Just a little...

[01:12:20] And then Ward Crane, do you know who played Gillette? No, I don't. Ford West. Oh. Another good name. That is such a 1924 actor name. It sounds like a command that you give some sort of pioneer. Yeah, Ford West. Young man.

[01:12:34] So yeah, so he goes back to the projection booth and this is where he falls asleep. He goes back to his first job. Right, so this is like minute 16 of the movie. Correct. We've set this character up. He's as low as he can possibly be.

[01:12:46] His attempts to try to be a detective have backfired on him. His rival's a step ahead of him. He's pulled pages from the same fucking book. Yeah. Anything Buster tries to apply to try to catch this guy in the act, the guy is a step ahead, right? Right.

[01:12:59] And so now it's just back to his job, his shitty existence in which he's now going to astral project himself into the film. The version of reality in which he's able actually to accomplish what he wishes he could accomplish. He's back in his so-called zone of comfort,

[01:13:15] which is being a schlemiel. Yes. And it's the end of Act One. And now he's going to cross the line. You see his sweetheart before that go to the pawn shop. Yeah, she's on his side essentially. She figures it out herself.

[01:13:27] This is also kind of a great joke of the movie is that she then proceeds to solve the mystery. Yes, he does nothing. He does nothing. She's like, he pawned this to you and he's like, that guy. And that guy, much like Ving Rhames in Pulp Fiction,

[01:13:40] just happens to walk by at that moment. He goes through... In Pulp Fiction, of course, the total reference. Yeah. He goes through the narrative satisfaction of accomplishing... The use of coincidence. But in a pawn shop, that sequence is in a pawn shop. Yes, yes. No, it is.

[01:13:55] He goes through like the narrative sequence of accomplishing something, right? And of like triumph. And then basically he wakes up out of the dream and he feels his catharsis because everything has fixed itself. And he's figured it all out. What happened to him.

[01:14:09] But his unconscious was able to do the thing that he kind of couldn't do. And presumably he's seen this film many times because he's the projectionist. It's a silent film, so he doesn't hear it, but he knows the story. So now in a dreamlike way, he is now...

[01:14:24] We see the characters in this movie transition into people from his life. They turn around, they show their back. And then when they turn back around, they've turned into the actors. By the way, when the movie starts, it's a kind of Victorian melodrama with different actors.

[01:14:39] Hearts and Pearls. And it's called Hearts and Pearls. The Lounge Lizards... something. Not a movie I would rush to. The Lounge Lizards lost love in five parts, which is telling us it's a feature, I guess? Yeah, probably. And also there's another joke that I looked up,

[01:14:54] which is it says, V-E-R-O-N-A-L, it says Vernal Films Company. And Vernal was a sedative. It was like a sleeping pill. It was a brand. It's a barbiturate, so it's boring. Are these typewritten notes? These are very involved notes. I have a printout of basically a plot synopsis.

[01:15:16] Oh, sure. And then I have little notes written within that. Just so I can keep track of the story. Geez, we gotta get to these notes. I mean, look at this. It's good. Single space. He's got a marble notebook. Yeah, I have a marble... I'm trying to...

[01:15:29] I should have brought an apple for you, by the way. Well... In the good student tradition. You have this great double exposure of him waking up out of the dream and he's sort of this astral projection version of himself. Right? That they...

[01:15:47] He's see-through, like a ghost or a dream figure. My beloved Corridor Crew YouTube channel did a video fairly recently where they went through this movie specifically and talked about three of the sequences. And they were more stumped trying to figure out the special effects of Sherlock Jr.

[01:16:03] than most modern movies. They hold up big time. I watched this with my... When I was watching this with my son, he loved it. And at one point he said, if I was... We're like, oh, this movie's... You know, it's 24. It's 100 years old. Yes.

[01:16:20] And he said, if I was watching this 100 years ago, I would have been flabbergasted. That's how he put it. Insane. But people are still flabbergasted. Right. They did it essentially just by building a set of the film and lighting it so differently

[01:16:33] that it looks like it is not a set. It looks so great. It looks like it is being projected. Well, yeah. I mean, there are a couple things going on. The first thing, you know, him walking into the screen. It's all a lighting effect.

[01:16:43] I'm even saying before that, when he wakes up and the spirit body comes out, basically in like a proto green screen way, they... I'm getting wrong which way it would have been. They shot, I think, the ghost part first on the set in the right positions,

[01:17:02] but they covered everything in the set with black velvet. Yeah, this is... Well, that's what they did for... What's the short where he plays all the... The playhouse as well. They would do that where they had to mathematically, like, they had to use surveyor's tools and all that.

[01:17:15] Shout out to his long-term DP who was named Elgin Leslie who shot this and the Navigator and the bulk of his shorts and most of his features of this era. Just insane visual matchup. And I know they had a very collaborative relationship

[01:17:27] and Elgin Leslie was really into working with Buster to figure out how to do this stuff. But you have this thing that's just like such a simple theatrical technique of, as you said, you just build the set behind the proscenium of the movie theater in this wide shot,

[01:17:41] light it differently so it doesn't look like it's a deepened part of the same image. It looks like it's a projected flat image, right? And you're watching him walk up the aisle and you go, when are they gonna cut? When does this fall apart?

[01:17:52] And he just steps casually into the screen and it feels like a miracle and you're like, what a beautiful poetic moment. And then the first fucking cut happens. Well, no, first they knock him out. Oh, right. Back into the audience.

[01:18:03] Oh, yeah, they toss him out of the movie. And then you cut to him sleeping, but then we're back to him trying to get back in again. It's very funny that him walking into the screen is this sort of magical cinema moment

[01:18:15] that gets put in Oscar montages and all that. His ghost self sees that the movie is transforming. And then one of my favorite little throwbacks, the transparent ghost taps the sleeping Buster on the shoulder. Right, like, get a load of this. And then also when the ghost leaves,

[01:18:31] the ghost then grabs his ghost hat, which is hanging next to Keaton's actual hat. But no, the thing that's crazy, right, is he gets kicked out of the movie and then the movie changes, like, it cuts to a door. And then he runs back in

[01:18:43] and, you know, that's his way into the end. And then the first great mindfuck sequence where the environment, there are a series of cuts. But Buster has not acclimated himself to filmic reality yet. So Buster still exists in our temporal linear world.

[01:19:03] But he is now in film world where environments can change in a second. He is immune to edits. So regardless of where he is spatially, in time, when it cuts to a different shot, a different location, a different angle,

[01:19:17] he will be in the same position of the frame even if now that suddenly places him at the edge of a cliff or sitting down on nothing. And then he's on a cliff. So he's going through the wormhole and it's uncomfortable for him.

[01:19:29] And some of these are sets and some of them are clearly like real, like, you know, he's out in the streets with cars whizzing by. And he and Elgin Leslie set it up very, very rigorously. You have to. So he's always in the right position.

[01:19:44] And apparently what they did is they had an initial shot of him and then they like put the film over the film they were shooting so they could line it up correctly. And it's really precise and it looks great. If it's only a millimeter.

[01:19:58] There's the one where he's looking over the edge of the cliff and then it turns into him in the wilderness surrounded by lions. Yes. And you're like, well, by its very nature, at the very least, these shots were done hours apart

[01:20:09] if not days apart, if not weeks apart. Right? These are company moves. Yeah. Company moves. 100%. There's a break on the call sheet. You're not moving from one soundstage to another. You're not redressing the set. He's by train tracks, whatever the fuck it is. He's in the ocean.

[01:20:24] There's all kinds of crazy stuff. Right. It's just kind of astounding thing and it's off by a centimeter. You will have that thing where on the cut, his body pops. The position is off a little bit. Years later, if there's a parallel effect like that,

[01:20:37] you'll see from other directors, there'll be a little millimeter of movement. There'll be a little shaking. A little something. Something will be off and it's so seamless, it's nuts. So you're saying your son sang like, this would be mind blowing

[01:20:50] if you saw this in theaters at the time, right? How did he pull this off in a technical level? I think beyond that, if you're an audience and you go, oh my God, he's making jokes about the language of movies. Exactly. Editing, which has now been developed,

[01:21:03] the art of montage to be a largely invisible thing that aids storytelling, right? There used to be this belief that you could not cut from one room to another because audiences would be disoriented. And that belief was only a few years ago. Yes.

[01:21:17] Where they were like, well, won't they be confused if we're in a different room? How do they know it's still the same time? Do they think the movie is about like teleporting? Exactly. Yes. Right. You cannot cross space and time in this kind of way.

[01:21:27] You stay within a proscenium arch. Now editing is something we've all gotten used to and he's making jokes about it. And then you finally at the end of this sequence, I think his greatest technical accomplishment is this sequence as a filmmaker. It is incredible.

[01:21:42] And it's also very funny. Yes. I just giggle at every, you know, transition. But it's also him awkwardly making his way through this portal so he can now enter the film and acclimate to the reality. And then we finally feel elegant. Yeah. The zoom.

[01:21:57] So it's him going through hyperspace or whatever. He so rarely does camera moves, but at the end of this sequence, it cuts back to the other two characters in the movie and the camera slowly tracks in. Yes. And the frame, the masking of the theater screen goes away

[01:22:12] and now we're just in the movie. Now we're in it with him. Yes. Now I do want to say whatever's happening in the movie where they're cutting to all of these different locations. I don't know if that... The movie is poorly made.

[01:22:22] I don't know if that lines up. It is weird that the movie pauses its Victorian, like, melodrama to be like a bunch of scenes. It becomes a newsreel. The cliffs, the ocean. Maybe it's where they want to go on their honeymoon perhaps.

[01:22:33] I think it's just that he is a foreign element and the film is trying to reject him. Oh, yeah. It's like antibodies. It's duck amok. It's Bugs Bunny fucking with Daffy Duck. Yes. And redrawing the world around him. Because basically the film is going...

[01:22:48] The film is now compromised because a man who obeys linear time is in a movie. And he can't exist there. So the film is kind of... It's kind of tilting like a pinball machine. It's transformed. The people within it have changed. Yes. I love how we're being logical.

[01:23:05] It's a science fiction... It's a portal to another reality. That's the ultimate expression of the key buster tension of a man against modernity, right? Right. Yes. Anyway, then two guys try and blow him up with a pool ball. I mean, they build just this, like, incredible, like,

[01:23:20] fucking 13 dead-end drive. How many booby traps can we place in this parlor? A very booby-trapped house. Right. But the pool thing is so funny. And the first use, by the way, of what I may refer to as Chekhov's billiard ball. Yes. Because it is later brought up again.

[01:23:34] And I do like that we get to see... They test one. They throw it at a tree. It blows it up. Yeah. Very good explosion. Right. And then you just have a whole sequence of him being the greatest pool player of all time

[01:23:46] potting every single ball except for the 13th. Right, because the sheet kind of, like, tosses it up and, like, catches it, and the butlers clearly, like, don't even fucking play around. This thing is so volatile. Do not touch it unless you intend to.

[01:23:57] Also, like, all these vaudeville guys really know how to play pool. Because W.C. Fields also had a bit in his act where he did eccentric pool, and he does them in some films. But the pool stuff is incredible. Insane.

[01:24:08] I also love that he's doing this incredible pool stuff, and then will occasionally cut to the guys who are, like, hiding. Yeah. And the butler will just be like... Oh, and the great thing is... He's doing his stuff, and he kind of just is like...

[01:24:19] This is also one of the benefits of it being silent and not using title cards, is the butler is describing with gestures what he's doing. He just did this thing. Right. It went over, and he's gesturing with his hand, and it's very...

[01:24:31] It's the expressionistic sign acting that you were talking about, which is contrary to Keaton, but it's perfect, and it's much funnier than cutting to a card saying he got... And their dopes were against them, you know? Like, it's funny that they're being routed here.

[01:24:45] But it also becomes a sub game, right? Where the main game you're playing is, look at what he's queuing up. In what possible way could he possibly avoid hitting the explosive ball in this scenario? And then the ball defies physics and jumps over it, leapsfrogs that one thing.

[01:24:59] Goes around. Every other ball goes into a pocket other than that one. So you're watching, first of all, with the tension of... How does he somehow avoid the explosion? And then the second that's done, there's the added comedic tension of...

[01:25:12] And how the fuck is this butler gonna explain what just physically happened? Right. Every time the trick gets more complicated, the funnier it is to see the guy struggle to, like, with his hands, gesticulate through it. Yeah. And the bomb ball just frozen on the table. Yes.

[01:25:28] And the other ball grazing by it and never hitting it. By the way, I just want to say that when he first enters as Sherlock Jr., it's, again, a wonderfully subtle transformation. Because in a very subtle way... Right, Buster's playing a character now.

[01:25:38] Buster is now a different character. He's dead in the air. And has a completely different energy. And he's trying to play high status now. He's wearing a top hat. He's very well dressed. But also his body language and just his energy is just a little different.

[01:25:49] Just sort of walking in and taking off the gloves. There's a quiet confidence and even a kind of cockiness. He lines them up. That, again, is very subtle. He's sort of eyeballing him. After this sequence... Yes. ...there is the very funny title card that,

[01:26:02] by the next day, the mastermind had completely solved the mystery with the exception of locating the pearls and finding the thief. So the movie is still undercutting him. Right. But it's a great joke. And also, like, once again, a joke that only can be made through text

[01:26:14] rather than using text as a crutch for visual effects. Very much so. And it's a very nice way to... It's a very nice stress reliever for the audience after the whole, you know, is Buster about to blow up? Let's just say in this billiard ball situation,

[01:26:24] they set up the billiard ball. They also set up this axe that is rigged to fall down when you sit on the one chair... Yes. Yes. ...and the poison in the shot glass, right? So you're like, these guys are overdoing it.

[01:26:36] Why do you need three different ways to kill him? It's unkillable. Yes. But he's unkillable, right? And the more... They almost keep on sitting down, switching the glasses. It just builds so perfectly. Yes. We just... We gotta keep moving here.

[01:26:50] Okay, so there's the car sequence is the next thing with Gillette, right? This is where they're gonna kill him in the car, basically, right? That's the... Gillette, his man servant, who's the guy who's always gonna... He's ever ready. He's a gem. He's gonna give you a close shave.

[01:27:06] He's got five blades. Whatever else. You know, he's the best the man can get. But Gillette's his guardian angel who sort of finds a way to keep him out of... Sure, he's his... And Gillette also consistently outwits Buster. Buster, there's a running gag where Gillette's in disguise

[01:27:21] and he keeps... Buster keeps not recognizing him. It allows Buster to win in the movie, in the movie without making him too aware of his surroundings because you still do want the constant kind of obliviousness. There's also when they go to...

[01:27:35] There's the sort of tough guy hideout, right? Yes. This like goon shack where the sheik goes, his muscle man. This one guy has the most incredible fucking face in the world. He looks like a freeze frame of a man being punched in the nose.

[01:27:53] Like his nose is all the way over on one side of his face. That's probably how he looked like. Yeah, he probably broke his nose a few too many times. Why does he jump through the person who's dressed like an old lady again? Why does that happen?

[01:28:08] There's no other choice. He's back against the wall. One is it was a bit that Keaton saw in vaudeville. It's a magic bit. And so he just wants to do that bit, but there's a logic to it because he's in a...

[01:28:21] It's a way to escape and he is now... He is acclimated to the magical film world and now he can do anything. You can see the matrix code. It's Gillette too. Like Gillette is so all powerful that he can transform space and time in order to help.

[01:28:36] Because it is Gillette in disguise as the old lady. Yes. And that's who he jumps through. Also, I remember seeing that with an audience. I think I first saw this probably in the 90s. Film Forum had a Keaton retrospective that I went...

[01:28:49] I vividly remember seeing The Navigator there. Yes. But I know I saw this and that really is a what-the-fuck moment when you see it with an audience. When he jumps through the guy. You do not see it coming. Yeah, right. You're not like, oh, I get it.

[01:29:01] He's going to jump through the guy's stomach. Like through a wall. No, but you see a guy dressed up as an old lady holding open a suitcase selling ties. Yes. Neckties. She's back up against a fence. He's in a corner. The guys have him, like, cornered.

[01:29:14] And he jumps through the suitcase into her belly. The suitcase goes through a wall. He vanishes and then the old lady, the man in the disguise, walks away from the wall. Right. Then the old lady walks away. And she's doing a, like... Buster's gone. Yes.

[01:29:27] Following that is the sort of, you know, breakneck car sequence where he's mounted to this vehicle. Well, you also... You have the sort of moment where the Sheik kind of, like, fesses up but doesn't believe that Buster's ever going to do anything about it. Right.

[01:29:47] You know? Which has the gag where Buster jumps through the window and suddenly that transforms into a new old lady. This is before that. Sorry. Right. But there... Sure. Yes. What I remember most is just him riding the car... Yes. ...into the barn, bursting through the wall,

[01:30:03] kicking the Sheik through... Is it the Sheik? You know, kicking the guy through the kidnapper of the lady. Yes. It is the Sheik, right? Yeah. Right. Well, because he does that incredible... The butler is the one who has Catherine Maguire trapped. Yeah, that's who it is.

[01:30:16] It's threatening to... Basically threatening to rape her. It's the big scary butler guy. You have... He does the crossfade on the side of the goon barn so you can see open inside of it like a dollhouse. Goon barn. Listen to us. What better way to describe it?

[01:30:28] No, I love it. No, it's a brohut. They have, like, pictures of fighters on the walls. Yes. It's like a celebration of guy culture. Yes. It's a man cave. It's a man cave. Exactly. It's really about fuckboys in man caves.

[01:30:39] But so you can see these seamless buster jumping in and out of the window and the car crashing through and all that sort of stuff. Then you get to the bicycle sequence. The motorcycle. Yes. Yes, that's what I was talking about. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

[01:30:54] Which is just... Is very thrilling. Gillette shows up in disguise again. Keaton is alarmed. And Gillette yet again says, it's me. Yes. Get on. Keaton sits on the handlebars of this motorbike and then as soon as they zoom off, Gillette falls off.

[01:31:10] There's also the bit where he thinks Gillette is like a cop pulling him over. At first he does. But it's five solid minutes of him mounted to this bike, sitting on the handlebars. It has no driver. Nearly avoiding death. And these crazy camera mist shots.

[01:31:25] And the boy is not aware that Gillette has fallen off. And by the way, in the shot where Gillette falls off, it's from the back and it's actually Keaton falling off. So Keaton did the stunt for the actor who played Gillette.

[01:31:34] It's also just, it's Wile E. Coyote logic that he can run off the edge of the cliff, but until the moment where he looks down, he stays up in the air. And now it's a very long mind-blowing sequence of him sitting on the handlebars of a motorbike

[01:31:48] that the character doesn't realize is not being driven. And he kind of keeps yelling over his shoulder, like, hey, watch out, you're gonna get us killed. There's the car that he looks like he's gonna crash into,

[01:31:58] but then the car turns out to be elevated, like he goes under it. And it's a combination of actual shots of Buster Keaton driving a motorbike by sitting on the handlebars. And then, which it's very important to Keaton in his films to like show stuff that's actually happening.

[01:32:17] But there are some optical effects in that and process shots. Yeah. Oh, so he's a liar. Okay. Well, who amongst these movies anymore? Who amongst us? But he, but it's all very, very seamless. And it's also wonderfully edited because the rhythm of that sequence is just hilarious.

[01:32:35] That's what ends with him bursting in, kicking the guy through the barn. Right. That's the end of that. And then they get in the car. He lands perfectly. And the car goes in the water. I'm sorry. I know we got a second movie to talk about.

[01:32:43] We do. And it's 4.41. I just need to call out Thomas Murphy's stag party. Ah, yes. In the middle of... Another, more bro-y culture he keeps in this film. It's so funny because you keep on cutting to, here's the new setup.

[01:32:57] You see him in frame. Here are a bunch of guys shoveling dirt. They're all going to throw it in his face. Here are three cars. They're all going to narrowly miss him. And that just hard cuts to a bunch of men with a rope. A bunch of men.

[01:33:08] And a sign that says Thomas Murphy's stag party. Yeah, they're having a tug of war. And they're having a tug of war and Buster's nothing, nowhere to be seen. Oh, yeah. And you just immediately know he's going to run through these guys

[01:33:17] and now he's going to have a chain of men on a rope. Right. It's like... Dragging behind him. They're getting ready to do a tug of war. It just occurred to me that the... This looks like a terrible stag party.

[01:33:26] The bicycle Chinese dragon sequence in What's Up Doc? is a complete homage to this sequence. Yes. Absolutely. Ben loves it. I do. Saw it when it premiered at Radio City Music Hall in the early 70s. Really? Loved it. You must have been very young.

[01:33:41] I was like nine years old or something. What's up, Doc? Yes. He does drag some boys into a river. Some tough boys. Yeah, his car turns into like a boat. But then after he gets the girl, then they're in the car.

[01:33:53] The car turns into a boat almost immediately. Yeah. And they sail down the river. Yes. And he sort of turns like the roof of the car into a sail, which is funny. Yeah. And that's when he wakes up. That's when he wakes up.

[01:34:06] And the movie is basically done. He's got his whole thing figured out. He shows up. He's back with the girl and she realizes he's innocent. Mm-hmm. And then the very funny... Well, she shows up in the theater, the projection. Yes. She's like, I figured it out.

[01:34:25] And then the melodrama is back on. The original film is back on and Buster then takes his cues from the movie. He sees the guy in the movie hold the girl's hand. He takes the girl's hand. The guy in the movie gives the girl a genuine romantic kiss.

[01:34:39] Buster gets her a little peck of a kiss. Which is such a funny comedic build of like he's there and he's like stumped. He has no what to do. He catches the movie out of the corner of his eye. He looks over.

[01:34:49] He's like, let me copy the movies, right? My whole... I've been living this fantasy life in the movies and he copies the move and it feels like, okay, he's in the moment. He's present and then he like panicked looks over.

[01:34:59] The funniest part is are his quick little checks in when he checks in on the screen in between each moment. Like them in this square, you know, roof. And then the movie... Do I have anything on my person that can function as a ring?

[01:35:10] That's what just happened in the movie. Exactly. And then there's a cut in the film. Yes. And the couple are now with two twin babies. Yes. And the father is dandling, I believe is the verb, on his knees.

[01:35:23] And Buster looks terrified and has no idea how to do the next part. Buster looks and is confused and scratches his head. Now my question... It's a great joke. Yes. Now my question for you is I have my own take on this. Yes. What's going on there?

[01:35:35] Your question is does he not know how babies are made? Exactly. Or does he not know how to do it at the speed that the movie just presented it? Is he sexually naive like Jim Carrey at the end of Dumb and Dumber? Right.

[01:35:48] Is he childlike innocence so he is not drawn towards sexual situations? If I may be permitted a comparison. No, of course. Or is something else going? You are permitted. You are permitted. One comparison pass for you. Yes, absolutely.

[01:35:59] But no, I think it's more that he's like, well, where am I supposed to get a baby? You know, I think that's the gag. Every other thing he's been able to copy in real time, even something like a ring that felt like a bridge too far,

[01:36:09] he found something in his pocket that he could hand to her, right? But the baby thing, it's like, well, then I can't do this right now. Exactly. This is going to take nine months.

[01:36:19] And it's kind of a callback to the portal when he's – now he's back in linear time. Yes. And he can't just jump cut to I have a baby. And also I think there – I think contrary to him being sexually naive,

[01:36:32] I think there's also a joke where he's like, wait, I don't get to fuck her? I mean, I just suddenly have a baby. It's sort of a joke about you don't get to see that in a movie. You just cut to the babies. Yeah. That makes sense too.

[01:36:43] Yeah. And I think that's the thing. I think aside from the fact that it's just like his tightest film, it has the most consistent laughs. This is the proper length for these movies. 40 to 50 minutes is really where they should be.

[01:36:55] And the ones that are 75, they get a little – They feel a little – And I agree with you guys. I think it's a perfect movie and it's the marker. And it's a perfect movie about the movies. I think still so insightful on like our relationship to the movies.

[01:37:13] Us looking to these screens, projections of ourselves, aspirational. Sometimes what we want to be but also sometimes looking for them to reflect back what we're struggling with in our lives to make sense of our own inner dramas, you know?

[01:37:26] Sometimes only losing yourself on a big screen in another story is the thing that makes you figure out your own shit. We'll play the box office game but a couple things, right? The pools, the pool table, obviously very hard to do. They were working for an hour.

[01:37:41] They were like, we don't know how to figure this out and Buster said it can be done. Give me 15 minutes with those stupid goddamn balls. He coated the balls with chalk and would just like figured it out like within a day how to do it all.

[01:37:52] And was just like camera, move it here. You know, we'll do that. You know, like doing that kind of stuff. Now are we playing two box office games? We are. Because there are two films? Oh, we certainly are. Holy moly.

[01:38:03] The thing about this movie that is the strangest thing is that it was not that successful. Not kind of a flop. It was his first bump as a future filmmaker basically.

[01:38:13] And the one after this, which we will be talking about next, which I think we all agree is not as transcendent. No, it's more a fun movie. Right. But this film was, yeah, just kind of did okay.

[01:38:26] Sometimes you can't see the forest for the trees when you're there at the time. So let's, yeah, I'm not seeing it. But I think everyone's like he got a little too complicated. All he needs is a girl in a boat.

[01:38:37] Put him on a movie where he just has different gags in a boat. Sherlock Jr. has multiple temporalities going on, alternate states of reality. It's making meta jokes about film language. It's got some razor puns. Yeah, this was and that was edgy shit in its day. Cutting razor.

[01:38:55] No one fucking made jokes at the expense of big razor. Yeah. All right. All right. So this is mid-April 1924, Griffin. Mid-April 1924. April 23rd, 1924. Let's look at the box office. All right. So the first film and these box office games are fun to do.

[01:39:12] We should get you to do a voiceover as the announcer of the box office game. The box office game. Yeah. I gotta have a name for my character. This is Benedict Groom speaking. I feel like Bofo should be in there somewhere. All right. Benedict Bofo Groom. Yeah.

[01:39:29] Thomas Megan is in this film. We've mentioned him in other box office games, I think, in future episodes. Thomas Megan. But he would play, he was a popular leading man of the time. This is a romantic comedy. Okay. Now this is 1924. 1924. Thomas Megan is in a romantic comedy.

[01:39:48] Yes, with Virginia Valley. Is it Virginia Valley? What Happens in Vegas? Yes, that's what it's called. No, it's called. I'm gonna guess. Oh. Peggle My Heart. It is called The Confidence Man. I liked your title better. Well, Peggle My Heart was a play like in old timey times.

[01:40:04] Number two at the box office. So The Confidence Man, so I'm gonna guess he's a Vince Vaughn type rogue. Oh, sure. At the end of the movie, he finds love and he sort of moves on a little bit from his roguish ways. You essentially nailed it.

[01:40:17] He is some sort of a con man who eventually goes straight with the help of a girl. When he finds a good woman. The Confidence Man. It's an age-old concept that still works. Number two is a silent comedy starring one of Keaton's contemporaries, Harold Lloyd. Yes.

[01:40:34] It is one of the best known, I think. Is this one Safety Last? No. Is it Speedy? No. The Freshman? No. I think that one came up on a different box office. Yeah. He's playing a bit of a dweeb or, you know, an awkward boy.

[01:40:54] It's not Grandma's Boy? No, I didn't know he did one called Grandma's Boy. Yeah, because I just saw it. It was playing a phone for him. How was it? Funny. No, it is called Girl Shy. Oh!

[01:41:06] And the poster sees many girls and he's holding some flowers but he's looking a little shy about it. Have not seen Girl Shy. So as opposed to a Vince Vaughn, he's more of a Michael Cera motherfucker in this one. Yeah, exactly.

[01:41:21] We can relate all of them to the kings of 2009 theatrical comedy. He's archetyped. There are only so many archetypes for the movies. Number three, I think it's come up on prior box offices. It's a Cecil B. DeMille picture. Hello! An epic religious film. Is it Original Ten Commandments?

[01:41:37] It's the original 1923 Ten Commandments. Incredible. Who are some of the actors in this? Oh, Theodore Roberts, Charles Daroche, Estelle Taylor. Estelle Taylor? The Bush. Estelle Taylor played Miriam. Estelle Taylor is Miriam? Not seeing anyone as God. No one plays God? No. Julia Fey is the wife of Pharaoh.

[01:41:59] Alright, so that's number three. Number four. Oh, it's a Lillian Gish film. Hello! Broken Blossoms. I mean, that is a film. The Wind. Good title but no. This is a drama. Lillian Gish and Ronald Coleman. Early Coleman! Ronald Coleman was a very well-known actor in talkies.

[01:42:21] He's a talkie actor. He is an Oscar winner. Stars in Lost Horizon, Frank Capra movie. He's the young, handsome captain. This is a war film. It seems to be set in Italy. It's called Captain Corelli's Mandolin. That's what it's called! No, it's called The White Sister. Wow.

[01:42:41] Bit of a boring title. Alright, the next film, I mean they really nailed the title here because everyone can agree on this thing, is a D.W. Griffith film about American history. Paul Revere, I think, is the major character. But you've also got a bunch of other...

[01:42:59] The British are Coming. That was going to be like this. It is called, and let me tell you, this is a really boring title, America. Wow. Nice. Griffith was like, everybody sit down! I'm just going to make a movie called America! That is the box office for...

[01:43:16] Who's in America? Give me a couple of names. Neil Hamilton, Garville Anderson. The poster was like, Hamilton, Anderson, America. You've got Lionel Barrymore. Legendary Lionel Barrymore. He plays Captain Walter Bookman. He plays God. I think he's a British villain. I love this country, America.

[01:43:40] I will bestow my blessings on it. He'd just be twirling the mustache. You can hear his voice. Sipping tea. Obviously, Sherlock Jr. was the main event of this episode. We should talk about The Navigator. And it's fine to squeeze The Navigator. Boat Bits, the movie.

[01:43:56] That's all it is. Because it's a fairly long... It's about an hour. Original title, Boat Bits. But it is all Boat Bits. That's all it is. A lot of his movies, they have this first act. Then he moves to a new setting.

[01:44:11] First act in this is like seven minutes. There's nothing wrong. Very popular Lonely Island video that is just one ten-minute boat bit. He is just talking about being on a boat. Basically, this was the I'm on a boat of its day.

[01:44:22] It is Buster just looking at the audience deadpan and going, I am on a boat. It has a great poster, which is him in a deep sea diving suit looking miserable. And I feel like the Buster in the little sailor outfit

[01:44:34] remains one of the sort of most popular Buster images. Very true. In fact, I was at a restaurant in LA a few days ago and I sent a picture and that is a publicity still from The Navigator. I think that's often the image that goes out.

[01:44:47] Because it looks like a sad little boy. I do think him sleeping at Sherwood Jr., that's a classic. And him with the book in the magnifying glass and the mustache. What happened was somebody in his company was aware that this boat,

[01:45:03] which had been like a sort of cargo and passenger boat, was being retired. And they're like, we can use this boat. And he said, if you get me the boat, I can come up with an hour worth of gas.

[01:45:13] It is so similar to what The General eventually is. Where he's like, vehicle? Let me work with it. This feels like dry run for The General. General, he finds the greater narrative side. The General is a real movie. This is just a series of bits.

[01:45:25] So it's a bit of a step back. Yeah, yes. But also it's like he was like, give the public what they want. I think I got too fancy with Sherlock Jr. A lot of the bits are good.

[01:45:35] So he's also, he has one of the great character names in this. And this one, he plays a rich boy. His name is Rollo Treadway. And I do think he's good as a fancy lad. We've talked about it as a fancy lad.

[01:45:47] We will talk about this on future episodes. It made me realize because that movie is obviously so coded like visually and tonally as a Ray Harryhausen movie. But Chris Elliott and Adam Resnick's Cabin Boy is such a Buster Keaton setup. There you go.

[01:46:04] A fancy lad needs to prove that he's actually a tough adult man. Exactly. Very true. I should rewatch Cabin Boy. I haven't seen that since I was like a kid. It also looks incredible. It's got like amazing stop motion and force perspective giants. Love Cabin Boy.

[01:46:20] But they call him a fancy lad in that movie. Ben, you said you kind of liked The Navigator. I did. Because of the boat bits. Yeah, it's got a ton of just slick bits. It's a wet ass movie. He lives across the street from a rich girl.

[01:46:35] There's a great joke where his chauffeur drives him across the street in a limousine, which is really funny. His chauffeur is really great in this. He wakes up, he looks out the window, he sees a young couple that just got married,

[01:46:47] and he just decides, I'm getting married today, book the honeymoon. Exactly. And he goes to whom and he goes, I'll figure that out. Right, I'll go find somebody. And he's like, well, there's the rich girl across the street who's equally sheltered, pampered, privileged,

[01:46:58] and clueless about the real world. And for various complicated reasons, they end up on this boat that no one else is on by some error. He proposes to her. Shipped out to some war country. It's all very complicated.

[01:47:11] She's insulted that he's proposing to her just because of physical proximity. Right? Convenience. Fair. She rejects him out of hand. Chauffeur's already booked the honeymoon. He goes, might as well take the trip. Goes to the dock. He gets on the wrong boat. It's Catherine McGuire again, right?

[01:47:28] It's the same girl from the show. Her father has bought this boat, but does not realize that the boat is being kidnapped. Right. They all end up on the boat together.

[01:47:38] And it doesn't matter why, but they end up by mistake, the two of them, on this boat that's being said adrift. Right. And he thinks this is literally a honeymoon before him, that this could be a victory lap, which then turns into a sad bachelor's tag.

[01:47:52] He wakes up the next morning. They've both gone to sleep, unaware that the other is on the boat. He wakes up, goes to the restaurant on the boat, and claps his hands for service. There's no one else on the boat. Yes. He's confused.

[01:48:05] And eventually they hear each other, and there's a great sequence where they're trying to find each other on this abandoned ocean liner. And there's a beautifully choreographed sequence near the front of the ship where they're running up and down stairs, all in real time.

[01:48:19] You can tell it's the thing. These movies were like half written because a lot of it was like, give me the setup, give me the spine. And I can come up with bits on the boat.

[01:48:26] Because on the day, I'm going to get to the set and I'm going to see spatially where everything is, and how much time we have and all that.

[01:48:32] And it's better to write bits off of what I know I have rather than come up with ideas and then try to build the circumstances. And this is part of it, like, obviously, Sherlock Jr., it just feels like a more personal piece of filmmaking.

[01:48:45] And this is just more, well, got to make a movie. Yes. There's an opportunity. We'll do a bunch of boat shtick. And Seba Bill Jr., which we will get to, is his last independent film, is another boat bit movie.

[01:48:57] But it's a boat bit movie that's more about the father-son dynamic. That one has an actual narrative emotional spine to it. Yes. So that's a real movie.

[01:49:05] But I feel like there's some fear in this movie where he's just like, okay, you guys want me to be funny in a location. When I saw this projected, I remember a small moment that got a big laugh, which is still really funny.

[01:49:17] Which I think is equivalent to the Describe the Dollar Bill moment, which is... They're both clueless. Well, that's an incredible sequence, yes. But they find each other on the boat and because they're rich people, people have cooked for them their whole lives.

[01:49:30] So they don't know how to make breakfast. She doesn't even know how to make coffee. So she like puts like unground coffee beans in a kettle. Like a really small handful.

[01:49:40] And it's like we need water and the tap doesn't work. So he gets – he finds a bucket and gets seawater. And then later they're at breakfast and they've managed to make some sort of breakfast.

[01:49:50] He takes a sip of coffee and then in a very Keaton-esque way, he very subtly registers that it's disgusting. He gets up, leaves. Obviously we don't see it, but obviously to vomit presumably off the deck.

[01:50:01] Then he comes back and when he comes back, he makes a gesture saying, I had to make a phone call. But the other thing that's like incredible about that is as you describe it, that is not inherently a silent film bit, right?

[01:50:13] That is a bit you could absolutely do in a talky comedy and you would just spell it out more. But it's what you said, the lenient quality of his odd unreadable energy. Yes. And then him gesturing like an old-timey phone with like the two hands showing.

[01:50:30] And he just goes like makes the phone gesture. And I remember that getting a big laugh when I saw it projected. There's just a specificity to these characters. And then it's now – right. The classic buster set up we talked about.

[01:50:42] I need to figure out how to become a proper seafaring man. I need to assume the role. I'm going to wear the outfit. I'm going to figure out how to make my way around.

[01:50:49] By the way, I just want to note – I have it in my notes here that Catherine Maguire's father in this. Frederick Vroom. Is played by an actor named Frederick Vroom. V-R-O-O-M. Fate did not make him a race car driver. I don't know why.

[01:51:03] He was a Nova Scotian film actor. That makes sense. The double O's. He also might have just truly been too big for cars. That's Frederick Vroom. One thing about this movie that's interesting is it's co-directed by Donald Crisp.

[01:51:19] A dramatic actor and director who plays Ulysses Grant in The Birth of a Nation. And he plays Rodney McDowell's dad in the great John Ford movie How Green Was My Valley. Great actor. An Academy Award. And he's incredible in that film, which is so good.

[01:51:34] And maybe Robert Altman thought it was better than Citizen Kane. I'm not sure I do. But the Oscars did. And it is a good movie. And classic Keaton shit. Where Keaton hires this guy because he's been told, like, yeah, hire a guy.

[01:51:46] And he's like, oh, get a good dramatic guy. He'll do the story stuff. I'll do the comedy stuff. That was exactly. And then immediately Keaton's like, this guy's trying to get in on my gags. And just like shuns him. He's pitching bits.

[01:51:58] Because he's like, why do I want to fucking direct the shoe leather in a Buster Keaton movie? He said he would come over with the goddamnedest gags you ever heard in your life. That was Keaton's read on Crisp's comedy jokes. That's a negative.

[01:52:10] We didn't want him as a gag man. Okay. You hear these examples of like studios, networks, whatever, strategically hiring a director for a thing. Because they're like, well, we want them just for this one thing they're good at.

[01:52:25] And hopefully they'll know their lane and will stay out of the business of everything else. Especially like star vehicles like this. And inevitably those guys come to set and are like, yeah, I want to do everything. Right. I'm not deferring to you.

[01:52:37] Apparently they literally told him the film was done. Yes. And then filmed the deep sea diving sequence, which is like, you know, the most complicated sequence. They picture wrapped him. Yeah. Like we're done. Yeah. It is Donald Crisp's face on the painting in the painting. Oh, sure.

[01:52:55] And it's like coming in the porthole. Yeah. Creeped out by a painting in her room and she throws it away and it ends up getting caught in a nail and hanging out. Buster Keaton's porthole. It's a very surreal gag. Because it doesn't mean anything.

[01:53:07] Like what does Buster think is happening? Then there's like some super goofy stuff where then he's startled by it. And he's actually frightened in a way that Keaton normally isn't. He actually has kind of a Harold Lloyd reaction to the stuff. He is flappable in this movie.

[01:53:22] Yes, he's flabbergasted. Yes. His gas is flabbered. I took a picture of the screen of that gag because I thought it was so funny.

[01:53:30] And then he gets scared and he gets covered in his sheet and he runs out and then she sees the sheet and thinks it's a ghost. It's all super goofy. It's not quite Keaton-esque. No. No, but there is.

[01:53:43] Look, once again, it's all good, but you do feel a man a little bit panicked. Yes. It's definitely a one for them. Yeah. Keaton said like a lot of the gags in the film were stolen or had already been done by other companies. Like street gags. Yeah.

[01:54:03] But the thing he really, really cared about was the underwater sequence and him being in the deep sea diving suit. He just thought that was going to be like interesting and different.

[01:54:12] I mean, it's the thing with him, which is like he is just so well-honed as a performer at this time that I think he knows there's not much he can throw himself as an actor that will challenge him. Right.

[01:54:23] And you feel him trying to challenge himself as a director and in terms of conceiving scenario.

[01:54:29] I mean, we didn't talk about it in the general episode, which will come out after this, but you read about the making of the general and he was so obsessed with like fucking you brought it up, James, but like Kubrickian every fucking uniform has to be period accurate.

[01:54:44] Every detail has to be right. I want this to look perfect. And people are like, it's a comedy. It doesn't matter. And he's like, no, it matters. No, yeah. And I'll try to push myself as a director. And he does. And the general doesn't.

[01:54:55] The general is great, but it doesn't lead as a comedy. It looks like comedy is part of the movie. It's part of his vocabulary, but it's a very different kind of. He doesn't belong in this movie. Now, this is his most successful film, at least at this moment.

[01:55:08] And he referred to it as his favorite film often, I think partly because it was such a hit. This also has a great title card at one point, which I love because the joke is completely obscure and I looked it up.

[01:55:19] But it's when he first decides to go on the boat anyway without who he's going to go to Honolulu by himself. Right. He proposed. He was rejected, but he's got the tickets. Yeah. He's going to go to Honolulu.

[01:55:30] And then there's a title card that says, going on a honeymoon without a bride is like singing the words of kiss me again to the music of Alice, where art thou? Which I'm sure in 24. Yeah. Fucking killed them. I was laughing. Yeah.

[01:55:46] I understand both of those reference points. Exactly. And how silly they would be together. Yeah. But I love her obscure. All those things you said. I love her obscure that is. Of course. And then I looked it up and Kiss Me Again is an uptempo like waltz.

[01:55:57] I can basically picture what that sounds like. Written by Victor Herbert and as you might imagine Alice, where art thou is a slow tempo kind of plaintive sad song. I love that it's a tempo joke. It's right. You know, mixing a ballad with a.

[01:56:10] It's kind of like saying. So in the remake we would say going on a honeymoon without a bride is like singing the words to Friday I'm in Love to the tune of Something in the Way. Sure. Very well done. If I may translate that. Beautiful translation. Yeah.

[01:56:26] I'm getting a very Gen X translation there. Anyway, this movie goes into one of his most extended racist sequences. Yes. There's a whole the whole finale. Yes. I really blocked this out. Right. This is also why this movie left a bad taste in my mouth. Absolutely.

[01:56:43] Even though it doesn't really nothing really happens on this island. But there. Yeah. Like it is. Like Sherlock. Back to 45 perfect minutes. Right. And then at minute 45 of this it's like here's our final act. It's 20 minutes of old school white panic racism.

[01:56:58] At best you have a couple of days work for like 30. Yes. Well for a number of black actors. Right. Perhaps some. It's this odd thing where it feels like the main tribesman is a white actor.

[01:57:12] Well, the chief guy is actually named Noble Johnson who was an African American actor. Okay. Who also plays the chief in King Kong. He had a corner on chief roles. Gotcha.

[01:57:22] But had a very long career and was actually a very well-known producer who produced films for black audiences. Okay. So he was a real actor with a real career. But again, it's 1924. It's like his agents like you're a cannibal. They're going to put makeup on you.

[01:57:36] And that's the he's like, all right, where's the shoot? Monterey. I'll spend a day in Monterey. The last 20 minutes are just them panic that they're going to be eaten. Yeah. By the way, which is so this sequence is where Keaton's timelessness falls to the ground. Yes.

[01:57:50] This is shatters into a million feel very modern. Yes. I mean, it feels very 1920s. Obviously like in very silent film and yeah, it's also just not as funny just because like, no, like just the physical gags are boring at that point.

[01:58:06] And I don't know, like I definitely had lost steam. Yeah. And I think the underwater stuff is probably impressive to look at. It looks good, but it's just kind of cute. Yes.

[01:58:16] And it's funny because there's Keaton says that there was, you know, there's a gag where a swordfish comes up to him and then he has a sword fight with the swordfish. Right.

[01:58:25] But then he said there was another guy that he cut where he put a starfish on like a badge and then traffic directed schools. See, that's funny. Fish, which I would imagine they were Steve's issue type fish going through. But I'm sure that's a cartoon.

[01:58:38] And then oddly, he was like, it's too cartoony. He's like, well, when it's, they previewed it. And he was like, the audience didn't laugh because they were caught up in the story, which is funny because this movie. Right. But the story is assembled with scotch tape and balls.

[01:58:53] But I think at that point, the island has been cited. The girl is at risk. Yeah. And they were like, why is he doing this? Apparently they'd spent ten grand on that gag and they had to cut it. Jesus.

[01:59:03] It's one of those things too where you're like, this movie doesn't have the, like the screwball energy between the romantic leads once they're on the boat. That could keep this thing. They're often doing kind of different parts of the boat.

[01:59:20] But ideally, a movie like this, you want some His Girl Friday energy where they're bickering and bickering until they realize they're in love. And instead it's just them both trying to survive. And I mean, Catherine Maguire does what she can, especially in the beginning.

[01:59:32] And she is good and she has a different energy from Sherlock Junior. She's playing the haughty thing. She's playing more of an upper class girl and you can see it in her subtle performance. And I really like their chemistry together.

[01:59:43] But yeah, it's just not as timeless and transcendent. But then again, it's Keaton. He makes a man. He's so talented. And Sherlock Junior is so great that it's hard to— That's the thing. His worst films have ten moments that are among the best things you've ever seen. Yeah.

[02:00:02] In one way or another. There's a quote from—and even like you read, like the variety review from the time is sort of like, yeah, like all the best bits are in the trailer. Like it's kind of like— Maybe in the 20s. Buster Keaton's comedy is spotty.

[02:00:16] That is to say, it's both commonplace and novel with the latter sufficient to make the picture a laugh getter. Not buffer but spotto. Yes. A little spotto. But there's a more recent review from Dana Schwartz where I just—

[02:00:28] This is just such a great summation of the whole Buster thing. Dana Schwartz, not Dana Stevens. Dana—Dennis Schwartz. Oh, all right. Not Dana Schwartz, also friend of the show. Yes, yes. Or Dana Stevens. Dana Schwartz said,

[02:00:41] It proved to be Keaton's biggest commercial success because its theme of civilized man versus the machine, seen as making life difficult for modern man because we have become so dependent on it and it's not always reliable, was never used more effectively in cinema.

[02:00:55] I do think that speaks to why this is probably such a big hit. Is it's just the cleanest kind of uncomplicated delivery system for the comedic dynamic that audiences liked most in Buster. Which is, he doesn't understand how a thing works.

[02:01:09] And there's a great sequence where they finally decide to learn how to cook and then they peewee Herman to the kitchen. Yes. With all these pulleys and ropes and things. Right. Zaytlub Goberg things. Yeah. He adjusts the world to his reality. Yeah.

[02:01:25] I think it's funny where the way it ends with the sub. That they're like— We're drowning. We're doomed. Yeah, exactly. We're doomed. We can't escape at this point. What are we going to do? And then the sub appears. Pretty fancy new technology back then, submarine. Pretty cool.

[02:01:42] I guess you're right. Submarines were kind of new. Pretty hot stuff. Newfangled shit. Yeah. Let's see this ex-submarine, if you will. Yes, Deus Exception. The box office game! He gets a smooch! Yeah. He gets a smooch. Well, the guy always gets his smooch at the end. Not always.

[02:01:58] No. Very often they sort of just walk off together. And then he trips and hits a lever and the submarine rotates. And then the cook comes out and is like, Hey, you broke my pot! The end. The Italian submarine cook. Spaghetti non-al dente.

[02:02:13] This film was a big hit and it is indeed in the top five on its opening weekend. Navigating its way to number three. It played the biggest theme in New York City. Very nice variety use of the title there. Variety style. Yes. Scheme. Navigating its way.

[02:02:28] Sailing towards success. Ankled failure. It's at number three. Okay. Number one is a silent drama film starring Ramón Navarro. Ah, very well known silent film actor. And of course the great Wallace Beery. Oh my God. Is it a wrestling picture? Is it a Wallace Beery wrestling picture?

[02:02:48] It is not because he appears to be a sporting character named Bobo. Ramón Navarro plays a young lover who elopes to Paris with his lady. It's called The Mustache of Fate.

[02:03:01] And they have a downward spiral where she becomes a prostitute and he learns the ways of the underworld from Bobo. I'm guessing it is titled It's a Living. It's called Curbside. That's not a bad title.

[02:03:15] It is called The Red Lily which is the nom de plume that she acquires as a lady of the night. My title is better. Yeah, definitely. That's too 19th century. They should have consulted you.

[02:03:27] I do love it when there's a Wikipedia entry for a movie and there's just the entire film available to you in the Wikipedia entry. But this was number one. This was number one. Now, number two is a King Vidor film. Oh, you're saying in bed in the Wikipedia.

[02:03:40] King Vidor, of course, who directed many, many great films including The Crowd which we mentioned. This is a drama, a nice 70-minute drama starring Eileen Pringle and the... The potato ship magnate? She must have been. Later quit acting for potato chip.

[02:03:58] Yeah, she was just like, we should put these things in tennis ball games. It was actually kind of tragic what happened to her. She popped and couldn't stop? Couldn't stop. And John Gilbert who we will at some point mention. The legendary John Gilbert.

[02:04:12] Who Brad Pitt's character in Babylon is very obviously based on. Who they claimed couldn't make the transition to talkies. Supposedly had a high voice although now people say that's not really a high voice. Hey, so did Mickey Rourke, didn't hurt him. No.

[02:04:23] I do love that moment in Babylon when Gene Smart's just like, it's not your voice. It's not anything. You're just over, man. That's just how it goes. Buster though did interestingly have a surprisingly deep and raspy voice when the mic's turned off. Which kind of freaked people out.

[02:04:36] It was like, that's not what you imagined in your head. Yeah. This film... It was one of the best gag pictures I ever made. It's about... One week and then after he built the house, well it was the darndest thing you have ever seen. Yeah, this house.

[02:04:51] It's about a Russian nobleman. What's it called? It's got a really boring title. A Russian nobleman. Okay, it is called Anastasia's Lament. I'm guessing it is called The Russian Nobleman. It is called... That would be quite a clue. I felt like a safe guess.

[02:05:07] It is called His Hour and it is mostly famous for being quite titillating for the time. Oh, a bit salacious. To the point that Louis Meyer got pretty mad at King Vidor for how hot... Hot-cheeked it was. King Vidor was a horny on Maine? Hot-cheeked.

[02:05:26] So he was bonked to Santa Horney Jail by Louis V. Meyer. Number three is The Navigator. Number four is a very famous Raoul Walsh film starring Douglas Fairbanks. An adventure film based on a classic. Uh... It's not... It's not Robin Hood. No. Robin's son Crusoe. No.

[02:05:50] It's The Thief of Baghdad. It is The Thief of Baghdad. You got one. I got one. It's always fun when you get one of these because it's hard to get. Fairbanks considered his best film. I've never seen that one. Considered one of the best Fairbanks movies.

[02:06:03] I've never seen it either. I've seen the Corda Powell Pressburger one. Yes, so have I, which is awesome. Not one of the all-time great special effects movies of the first half of the century. Douglas Fairbanks plays the Thief of Baghdad in this film, but our favorite, Snits Edwards...

[02:06:18] Snits! ...is quoted as his, literally quoted, his title is his evil associate. That's the credit he gets. You may or may not know Snits Edwards, but he's in a lot of Buster Keaton movies and he's just got a great face. He's often played sneering butlers.

[02:06:34] Well, you texted me a reference to Snits earlier and I wasn't sure what you were referring to. Yes, yes. I was making a pro-Snits joke. I love... I love the name. Anna May Wong is also in this film. Very, very famous figure.

[02:06:51] And Noble Johnson, who we already mentioned. Oh my God! In this film as the Prince of the Indies. Another indigenous potentate to add to his long list of credits. So that movie, I think that movie has been in theaters for many months at this point.

[02:07:07] Number five is a drama starring... Oh, it's a Cecil B. DeMille film. Hello. Hello. Starring Vera Reynolds and Rod LaRock. Yeah, Rod LaRock. What a name! I've heard... I don't know his work but I do know that name. It's a good name. I don't know.

[02:07:26] He looks like a guy. Oh sure, he looks like a guy. Rod LaRock. Rod LaRock. A gentleman. And this film appears to be about a guy who gets injured by a shark. So his wife has to become a fashion model to make ends meet.

[02:07:41] And then there's all kinds of stuff that happens and apparently someone almost dies from gas fumes. I don't know, this sounds very dramatic. Why has this not been remade? That's such a clean premise. This film is called Black Reef.

[02:07:54] It's not called Black Reef but that's a great title. Okay, David pointed as if he was close. No, no, he's not. No, you just thought it was good. I just thought it was good. I was just... if you want to wager a guess for this lost film.

[02:08:03] Yeah, it's called... Ow! That's my arm! Guess you're gonna have to start modeling now, wifey. Yeah, they thought about that but it couldn't fit in the Marrakees. So they instead settled on Feet of Clay. Feet of Clay. Feet of Clay. A wonderful phrase. How you doing, Tony?

[02:08:19] Been a real feet of clay situation, you know, attacked by a shark. Feet of Clay. You've also got something called The Story Without a Name. They should have titled it. That's lazy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Unfinished. Incomplete. They've got a Gloria Swanson film called Her Love Story.

[02:08:35] And they've got Robert Altman's Three Women. Incredible! An early, very early Lubitsch movie called Three Women. Oh! Interesting. Who's in that one? Mary McAvoy, Pauline Frederick. You know, it's kind of pre-Lubitsch touch. Pre-musical because it's silent. Yes. I have not seen any of the Lubitsch silence.

[02:08:56] I think the earliest Lubitsch I've ever seen is The Smiling Lieutenant and that does have talking in it. Yes. That one's lovely though. It is very good. And it has my favorite guy, Maurice Chevalier. Maurice Chevalier for little girls. David's recently become Chevalier-pilled. Oh my God.

[02:09:14] He's watched Gigi, understandably. Yes. So, but that's it. Gigi movie, you know, you're not allowed to screen within 500 feet of a school or church. Gigi is the weirdest movie to be rated G. Yes. Because it is so weird. But Maurice Chevalier is so fun in it.

[02:09:31] Yeah, his wonderful homage to the future sexuality of prepubescent girls. Lovely idea for a song. In a movie with like, basically like Disney presentation. You know there is a website where you can type in your zip code and see anyone who's watched ZZ?

[02:09:45] Gigi, I fucked up my own joke. All right. Okay. We're done. James. I gotta go home. My God. Thank you for having me. This was such a delight. I'm so glad we did this in person. Me too. You were here in town. Worked out perfectly.

[02:10:00] This episode's going up in like two days because of it and that's exciting. That's why we keep saying, and we're gonna talk about that later. But yeah, you're one of my favorite people.

[02:10:08] You are a classic example of someone where the pandemic has made it much longer since we've seen each other. Yes, because I used to get to New York a lot more. And I would go to LA.

[02:10:17] I would try to get hired in movies and I would stay on your couch and babysit your children in exchange for being allowed to stay at your home. And then we would go to bars now and then. Yes, yes. And talk about old movies and being sad.

[02:10:31] My two favorite subjects. But it's been too long and it was so nice to finally get you on the show. Well, it's a privilege to be here. So thank you. Privilege all ours. Do you want to plug the new The Venture Brothers movie?

[02:10:47] Yeah, well, coming out in all I can say is later this year. Yes. They're rolling this out in their own way. But we have completed this special, which is feature length. So we're calling it a movie and we kind of tie up all the loose ends.

[02:11:00] The old gang gets back together for one last cape. And that's coming out. And then there's a couple of – there's a handful of like independent films that I'm in that are kind of outer coming out.

[02:11:12] A funny movie called Country Club directed starring and written by a powerhouse named Fiona Robert. A young lady who made this movie and stars in it and it's a comedy. One to watch? Playing another one to watch.

[02:11:26] And I play another quirky authority figure in it with a bunch of young people. It's like revisiting the guns. I told my friend we were going to be on the podcast and she said, oh, tell him I loved him as piss criminal in Law and Order.

[02:11:39] Piss criminal in Law and Order. That's one of my great crawls. She couldn't actually remember if it was Law and Order or CSI. Well, of course it was Special Victims. And I was the red herring, which is a role I often play on those shows. Yes, right.

[02:11:51] Where everyone's like, it's gotta be this guy. He's not actually evil. He's just creepy. Well, I was a man who put mini cams into women's restrooms. But this – and Amy Sedaris plays my sister, by the way. And this leads the cops. They bust me for that.

[02:12:06] So it's a gonzo reunion. But then one of the tapes I inadvertently made, a crime was committed. Someone molested someone in the room. So I lead them to the actual perp of the episode.

[02:12:16] Does someone have to explain to Ice-T why you would put a camera in a woman's restroom? Like does he have to be like, wait a second. You're telling me it's a John Mulaney thing. This guy spies on women. It's the Special Victims.

[02:12:27] I'm also just thinking if you went into Adult Swim tomorrow and said the show is called Piss Criminal and stars me and Amy Sedaris as perverts. As siblings. They would literally throw a green light at us. They'd be like, we just pre-soldered that.

[02:12:38] They would throw an actual traffic light that was battery operated and they would throw it at my head and it would bomb me. They would in the room give you an 80 episode commitment for a total budget of $20,000.

[02:12:48] And then I'd be unconscious bleeding because they threw an actual green light from a traffic light at my head. And you're blinded too because it's still flashing. It's like a lighthouse sort of spinning around silently. And then I smile and then slowly die.

[02:13:02] Well, Sedaris or Baniak, Piss Criminal coming to Adult Swim. By the way, that character did have a name and his name was Wade Donatova and I always felt Wade was a sort of aquatic pun. That's funny. Those guys have fun. They're clever, those writers. They're clever.

[02:13:15] The gag men. The Law & Order gag men. Oh my goodness. Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review and subscribe. Thank you to Marie Barty for our social media and helping to produce the show. Thank you to Joe Bowen, Pat Reynolds for our artwork.

[02:13:30] Lee Montgomery, the Great American Owl for our theme song. AJ McKeon, Alex Barron for our editing. JJ Birch for our research. Those dossiers. He had a lot of work. Doing great. A lot of work and they've been beautiful for this series. Tune in next week for...

[02:13:47] Next week is? Next week is Jamie's episode so it's Go West and Seven Chances. The Great Jamie Loftus. The Great Jamie Loftus back on the show. Her new book, Raw Dog. One of the rare Keaton films that was remade. Yes, it was.

[02:14:02] With the Buster Keaton of our day. Of our day. Incredible. We talk about it. We do. We do talk about it. I didn't realize S.S. Rajamouli also remade Our Hospitality. He did. Is it short or something? People have been recommending it but that seems really interesting.

[02:14:22] And the navigator was remade as Captain Phillips. A lot of people don't realize that. Fewer gags. You can go to BlankCheckPod.com for links to some real nerdy shit including our Patreon, Blank Check, special features. Barcott Opti is the old stone face of our modern time.

[02:14:37] A stony face. You know? Guy's got a real... I want more slapstick Barcott Opti comedies. Yeah, I want to see him getting up into mischief. The Planet of the Apes, the classic Planet of the Apes series. A series I imagine you must have some fondness for.

[02:14:51] A lot of great character actors. That's true although I was never that into the Planet of the Apes movies. But I do like that original, like Roddy McDowell. You mentioned him earlier. Yes, the greats.

[02:15:01] Well you mentioned Baby McDowell of course when he was in I Agree With Our Reality. He was so small. You know I saw that film for the first time like a year ago and he's extraordinary in that movie. I suddenly got Roddy McDowell.

[02:15:12] The whole thing with that movie is I spent my whole life being like oh that's the movie that shouldn't have beaten season 10. Then you watch it and you're like I don't know man I'm pretty stirred right now by these well spiders.

[02:15:21] It's one of the great kid performances ever. Yeah. If you want to hear Roddy McDowell talk that's what's happening over on Patreon. And of course the Dana Stevens shorts episode has just come out if you want to listen to that which was a real fun time.

[02:15:35] A pip as they would have said in Buster's time. Thank you again James for being here. Thanks James. Thank you. And as always this is No Bits Pro Snits Podcast. Even though he wasn't in either of the movies we talked about today.