3/1/06
While not as good as either The Camera Man or The General, Steamboat Bill Jr. is a funny Buster Keaton movie, and if I remember correctly a favorite of Bill Cosbys. Ernest Torrence is William Canfield Sr. the owner of a riverboat (The Stonewall Jackson) in the American heartland. Bill Sr. is excited about the coming visit of his son William Canfield Jr., whom he has not seen since he was a baby, as the child was raised by his mother in Boston. Expecting a rough-and-tumbler like himself Bill Sr. is horrified when he discovers his only son to be a prisyfied berea wearing weakling. Bill Jr. wants to please his pop but is somewhat distracted by his pursuit of college classmate Marion King (Marion Byron) whose father John James King (Tom McGuire) happens to be his dads biggest competitor in the riverboat business. Various highjinks ensue, the most memorable of which is Keatons prolonged battle with a terrible windstorm that completely decimates the small riverfront town. This movie also boasts one of the funniest title card lines I've ever seen in a silent film. When Bill Jr. comes to break Bill Sr. out of jail (long story) he is bringing his pop a loaf of bread with about half a dozen tools baked in it. Unfortunately the tools fall out of the loaf before Bill can hand it over to his father, when the Sheriff then gives young William a dirty look of realization upon the screen flashes the following: "That must have happened when the dough fell in the tool-box." At only 71-minutes Steamboat Bill Jr. is a worthy silent comedy.
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