Topic: One Run Elmer (1935) - Buster Keaton

[metaldams]

      I always thought there weren't enough great baseball slapstick routines.  Abbott and Costello's "Who's On First," while brilliant, is verbal.  The most famous slapstick baseball is probably the animated Bugs Bunny cartoon, BASEBALL BUGS.  Take The Three Stooges, Chaplin, Lloyd, Laurel and Hardy, Langdon, Marx Brothers...not much baseball comedy.  Keaton did it, most famously in an empty Yankee Stadium in THE CAMERAMAN, but also in this week's short.  Keaton himself was a huge baseball fan and played lots of games with his crew over this years, so I imagine he enjoyed making this one.  The formatting of a baseball game is of course inning by inning, so it was easy just to throw a random gag per inning, making the second baseball oriented half of this film episodic...just like a baseball game.  Lots a fun little gags, like the exploding baseball, first base tied to the first basemen's foot, the broken bat throw to first, and the game ending drop kick into home plate that not even Pete Rose would dare!  Really enjoyable, especially if you're a baseball fan.

      The first half is good too, Keaton working a gas station in some deserted desert area, only to have Harold Goodwin build a competing gas station directly across.  Watch Keaton's body movements in the beginning being startled as he picks himself off the chair and runs around.  Very few people can make such mundane tasks look interesting, but Keaton's physical acting skills were among the best, and it shows here.  I also love the routine concerning the competing gas prices, especially the way Keaton writes the number 18 and how going through all that trouble of lowering the price eventually backfires on him.  Also love it when Keaton and Goodwin play pepper and Keaton basically gets his gas station destroyed.  The gas station transforms into a wrecked creation on its own, but I can't help wish for a bigger budget here. Not bad for what Keaton was given, but compared to the angular Merry go round of a house in ONE WEEK, it doesn't quite compare.

      The love angle doesn't take up too much time this short, but I'm not a fan of him trying to dust all over her in the car...just makes him look like a fool.  As for Harold Goodwin, along with Dorothy Sebastian and Harry Myers, another actor slumming it out at Educational after previously doing bigger things.  He previously worked at MGM and was even Keaton's on screen rival in FREE AND EASY.  While I'll take ONE RUN ELMER over FREE AND EASY anyday of the week, no doubt the paycheck was better for Louie B. Mayer.

[Umbrella Sam]

Yeah, I agree. There surprisingly aren’t many other slapstick baseball comedies and it’s rather disappointing that there aren’t. At the top of my head, the only ones I can think of are BASEBALL BUGS and a Shemp Howard Vitaphone comedy called DIZZY AND DAFFY. Considering Keaton’s love of the game, it’s surprising he never attempted one during the silent era (besides the stadium scene in THE CAMERAMAN).

Much like THE GOLD GHOST, this feels like the kind of comedy Keaton would have made during the sound era had he retained his independence, though this one has the added benefit of having a pretty good supporting cast. The idea of Keaton failing to attract customers to his gas station is a pretty good one and Keaton takes great advantage of it through the first half. The second half with the actual baseball-related gags is also pretty creative. Probably my favorite scene is when Keaton and his team mistake a fruit for a baseball and try desperately to put it back together. While I can’t say it’s on the same level as BASEBALL BUGS...well, it’s hard to compete with something that has scenes like this:

ONE RUN ELMER is actually a pretty solid baseball comedy on its own. I only have two problems with it: one is the scene metaldams mentioned with Keaton acting like an idiot trying to dust off Lona Andre. The other is Dewey Robinson’s character. Not that his performance is bad; he does well with what he’s given. However, there’s a scene early on in which Keaton breaks his window, yet when they meet up again, there’s no pay-off to the two noticing each other; he even gives Keaton the win despite how obvious it was that he cheated. Despite this, I still really like the creativity in this short. So far, this is my favorite of the Educational Keaton shorts.

9 out of 10

[Big Chief Apumtagribonitz]

This is for all intents and purposes a silent movie.

[Paul Pain]

The first half was an awful drag like nails on a chalkboard.  The second half breathed incredible life into short subjects, and it's a shame we didn't get to see a full 25 minute short of this material.  As metaldams said, the supporting cast is basically crap.

I regret the 10 minutes at the start, but the second 10 were worth every penny.

8/10

[Big Chief Apumtagribonitz]

Didn't Joe E Brown make some baseball movies?  And Don't forget Kill The Umpire, with William Bendix,  which is really fun.

[metaldams]

Didn't Joe E Brown make some baseball movies?  And Don't forget Kill The Umpire, with William Bendix,  which is really fun.

Not sure about Joe E. Brown.  I’ve only seen one of his starring films, BROADMINDED only because Bela Lugosi is in it.  A comedian I should check out more.  That said, wouldn’t be surprised but yeah, very few baseball films from major comedians.  Wheeler and Woolsey can be added to the list.

I do mention Lloyd, SPEEDY almost counts.  Baseball fandom is involved and some guy named Ruth has a role, but no on field-in game gags I can recall.

[Dr. Mabuse]

Shot entirely outdoors, "One Run Elmer" returns Keaton to the naturalistic settings of his silent features and keeps dialogue to a minimum — highlighted by a surreal baseball game in the middle of nowhere. Definitely among the best Educational two-reelers.

8/10