Film

Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in New York, plus articles, trailers and more
 

Steamboat Bill, Jr (1928)

Director: Charles F Reisner

Average user rating
No reviews

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

A marvellous comedy set in a lazy riverside town in the Deep South, with Buster as the foppish, city-educated boy who returns home to prove a grave disappointment to his father, a burly steamboat captain looking for stout filial support, and reluctantly joins him in his efforts to fight off a wealthy rival threatening to take over the river. Hilarious, of course, with both delicately observed jokes and energetically athletic stuntwork coursing through the movie. But what really delights is the detailed depiction of small town life, plus Keaton's comic awareness of his own persona; a sequence in which he and his father are buying a hat to replace his wimpy beret is a model of film comedy, played, remarkably, direct to camera. And the final masterstroke is the cyclone sequence, in which the entire town is destroyed but Buster remains miraculously untouched.

Author: GA 0000-00-00 00:00:00

Time Out Film Guide

  • Print this page
  • Send to a friend

What do you think?
Post your review now

clear rating
Min 1 star. Zero stars will be treated as unrated.

*mandatory fields


Cast & crew

Director: Charles F Reisner

Producer: Joseph M Schenck

Cast: Buster Keaton, Ernest Torrence, Marion Byron, Tom McGuire, Tom Lewis, Joe Keaton full cast

Genre(s): Comedy

Duration: 6 mins


Features

Making a name for himself

Making a name for himself

Sin Nombre's Cary Joji Fukunaga learned his lessons well.

To the letter

Forty years later, Costa-Gavras's Z still brims with fury.

Mind over matter

David Cronenberg reflects on a most bizarre body: his own corpus of work.

Fool's gold

Can an Oscar win lead to a cursed career? Here are five stories of postaward professional meltdowns.

We are the championed

Terrorists and teens abound in this year's "Film Comment Selects."

A history of violence

Matteo Garrone's kaleidoscopic Gomorrah wallops you with Italy's crime crisis.

True romantic

James Gray exchanges urban amorality for amour in Two Lovers.

Playing in the dark

MoMA salutes pianist Stuart Oderman's 50 years as the one-man sound of silents.

Junk bonds

Cast and crew recall the making of the classic NYC drug drama The Panic in Needle Park.