Saturday, December 17, 2005
The Navigator (1924)
Director: Donald Crisp, Buster Keaton
First I must urge all Seattle residence to go to Silent Movie Monday’s at the Paramount. No matter the film showing the experience of watching 80-year- old silent films in a gorgeous silent movie palace with the original organ being played masterfully by Dennis James is transportative. It is magical to imagine you are in the 1920s participating in the still new phenomena of watching feature film in a luxurious theater. I cease every opportunity to be apart of this refreshing time-travel to the near-beginning of cinema and modern culture. I bet you’d like it too.
This experience is even better when the film is wonderful; and The Navigator is wonderful. I would place in the top 10 silent films I have seen and near or at the top of silent film comedies. (Only Harold Lloyd’s Girl Shy may beat it in the comedy department.) It is in the class of films which once it gets going, which is the first 3 minutes in this case; you laugh yourself into a silly stupor until it ends. Also, it is in the class of films which cannot be described, as the brilliance is all the watching. (This of course is true for all films but to an even greater degree in a film like The Navigator.) The sheer genius of the comedy is breath taking at times and you are self-conscious of this genius in the moment; a number of times I found myself thinking in between breathes of laughter: “What a brilliant visual joke!” Such moments include Buster character Rollo Threadway and trying to make breakfast and his love Betsy O'Brien chasing each other all over the ship trying and failing to find one another, Buster’s fear of the portrait that keeps swinging by his porthole, and the underwater scene where Buster is trying to fix a hole in the boat. (I could probably list just about every scene on this list of visually brilliant comedy.)
My delight in watching The Navigator was increased by luck. I happened to sit between a 5 year old girl with her parents who giggled uncontrollably throughout The Navigator’s 80 minutes and a couple easily 80 years old who equally enjoyed every minute of the screening. This last bit, of course, cannot be replicated at home no matter the equipment you have – so get yourself out to The Paramount Seattle and go back in time with these cinema treasures.
A quick, irrelevant plot summary: Buster is an effete playboy millionaire who decides one morning he is going to marry the effete young woman millionaire across the street. She refuses. Through a ridiculous series of errors and misunderstandings they end up alone on a cruise ship floating abandon at sea. After some of film histories funniest visually and physical comedy Buster gets the girl.
First I must urge all Seattle residence to go to Silent Movie Monday’s at the Paramount. No matter the film showing the experience of watching 80-year- old silent films in a gorgeous silent movie palace with the original organ being played masterfully by Dennis James is transportative. It is magical to imagine you are in the 1920s participating in the still new phenomena of watching feature film in a luxurious theater. I cease every opportunity to be apart of this refreshing time-travel to the near-beginning of cinema and modern culture. I bet you’d like it too.
This experience is even better when the film is wonderful; and The Navigator is wonderful. I would place in the top 10 silent films I have seen and near or at the top of silent film comedies. (Only Harold Lloyd’s Girl Shy may beat it in the comedy department.) It is in the class of films which once it gets going, which is the first 3 minutes in this case; you laugh yourself into a silly stupor until it ends. Also, it is in the class of films which cannot be described, as the brilliance is all the watching. (This of course is true for all films but to an even greater degree in a film like The Navigator.) The sheer genius of the comedy is breath taking at times and you are self-conscious of this genius in the moment; a number of times I found myself thinking in between breathes of laughter: “What a brilliant visual joke!” Such moments include Buster character Rollo Threadway and trying to make breakfast and his love Betsy O'Brien chasing each other all over the ship trying and failing to find one another, Buster’s fear of the portrait that keeps swinging by his porthole, and the underwater scene where Buster is trying to fix a hole in the boat. (I could probably list just about every scene on this list of visually brilliant comedy.)
My delight in watching The Navigator was increased by luck. I happened to sit between a 5 year old girl with her parents who giggled uncontrollably throughout The Navigator’s 80 minutes and a couple easily 80 years old who equally enjoyed every minute of the screening. This last bit, of course, cannot be replicated at home no matter the equipment you have – so get yourself out to The Paramount Seattle and go back in time with these cinema treasures.
A quick, irrelevant plot summary: Buster is an effete playboy millionaire who decides one morning he is going to marry the effete young woman millionaire across the street. She refuses. Through a ridiculous series of errors and misunderstandings they end up alone on a cruise ship floating abandon at sea. After some of film histories funniest visually and physical comedy Buster gets the girl.
