IMHO, by far the best Educational yet. And from all I've read and heard, this is the high point of the Educationals. Maybe, accent on maybe. There may be one better, I'm given to understand. Maybe. This is the only one I've seen before now, and it's obvious that the big bit here is the recreation of Buster beating up his father Joe ( here played by the bandleader ) to the tune of The Anvil Chorus. You can imagine the original in Vaudeville, with the six-foot Joe Keaton and his three-foot son wailing on each other. Not being an expert, I only know this is true from having read about a bit where the Keatons, pere et fils, did some kind of violence set to the Anvil Chorus. In other words, I recognized the music before I recognized the bit. I hope I'm right.
And yes, Buster is marvelously athletic and vaudevillian ( the two terms are often synonymous ) in this one, testifying to his sobriety. No drunk, even on hiatus, could do this stuff. It's almost like he was showing off his sobriety, letting anyone watching know. Sadly, it didn't do him much good professionally.
One complete travesty is Elmer's rented room, which doubles as a rehearsal space. Any space rented to a smallest-timer such as Elmer in New York City would barely hold a bed, never mind rehearsal space AND A FIREPLACE? This is obviously a joke, but I'm not sure who would get it.
A lost joke ( as you know, I try to explain these passe jokes as best I can to you young whippersnappers ) occurs during Buster's backstage dance to the string band's International Medley. He dances a folk dance to each national dance ( and BTW his Russian knee-dance, which is incredibly difficult, is
spectacularly well done, even throwing in a tiny touch of parody ) BUT... when they come to the middle-eastern sounding strain, you'll notice that Buster
turns his back to the camera and hesitantly does not much at all. That's because back in that era, it was commonly known that the words to that four minor bars were " Oh, they wore no clothes in those old Egyptian shows..." Buster's teasing at that point. Now that you know the words, try it and you can sing along with it, and the bit makes sense.
Aside from all this, I got nothing.