Topic: Love Nest on Wheels (1937) - Buster Keaton

[metaldams]

      We are ending our wicked epic long Keaton discussion with 1937's LOVE NEST ON WHEELS a very appropriate film to go out on, as things come full circle.  Though his Dad ain't here, Keaton does get to work with his Mom, sister, and brother just like he did in the old days.  This short is also a remake of the film he made with ARBUCKLE back in 1918 called THE BELL BOY.  Finally, for the first time since THE HIGH SIGN, Keaton is reunited with old Arbuckle co star, Al St. John, who is most welcome here.  The majority of these Educational shorts have weaker supporting actors versus Columbia or Roach, but not this time.  We also get Bud Jamison in a fantastic role.

      Another thing about this short is no Keaton getting the girl, it's just straight yokel Keaton and family being slow witted and quick on the slapstick.  Keaton and Jamison do a wonderful scene where the hot towel gets tossed on the clothing line in a basket, knocking an angry Jamison on the head and kicking Keaton down repeatedly, giving him a chance to take some wonderful falls.  Keaton and Al. St. John also takes turns stretching their body in ungodly ways as they try to pull a cow out of trailer on a rope.  St. John is in "Fuzzy" mode here with his beard, much like he was in his second career as a sidekick in b westerns.  Keaton's Mom proves she can deliver a line, (love the "suite" screw up), and even his sister can take a fall!  We also get the classic elevator and moosehead gags from THE BELL BOY revisited, so a lot to like here.

      A nice way to end our Keaton discussion.  While not among the top few Educational shorts, I'd rank this one top half for sure.  Keaton comes full circle as do we, now having a thread for every American film he starred in plus his Arbuckle collaborations.  Though there'll be no official review of it, I urge you all to go to YouTube and search for THE RAILRODDER from 1965.  It's a half hour tour of scenic Canada and a late in life Buster makes this a Hell of a lot of fun.  I just watched it for the first time a few months back and it gave me a big smile.

[Big Chief Apumtagribonitz]

     Dreadful.  Awful.  Not even a hint of a laugh.  They've turned Buster into a zombified Elmer, a microcephalic retarded hillbilly.  Not even an attempt at satire or self-awareness at all. This is proto-Beverly Hillbillies without even a shred of  humor.  These  backwoods morons make the Beverly Hillbillies sound like the Algonquin Round Table. This is Rollo Treadway?  This is Johnny Gray?  Even " Elmer " is less brain-dead than this.  That's a great sequence with Bud Jamison?  Sorry, no.  Having his hat knocked off repeatedly is not a great sequence,  nor is  having his head stuck in the elevator, especially since neither sequence is in the least funny.  The comedy would have lain in making the newlyweds the leads, and Elmer's family the irritants, a la Green Acres.  That may have been the original plan,  but the newlyweds are certainly not strong enough to be Oliver and Lisa Douglas,  and Buster/Elmer has no strong or sly country smarts, and aside from the idea about the trailer, he has no real smarts at all.   Someone might have thought it was cute to have Buster's family in the cast, although more likely he finagled them on the payroll, but they're at best blandly competent, and, sorry to say, photogenically unattractive.
     There's a famous Variety headline which I'm sure you all know, " Stix Nix Hix Pix ".  This had to be one of those pix.  We've been discussing bad Stooges vs. Bad Buster, and I'd contributed without seeing this one, but now that I've seen this, it now ranks for me almost with the tops of the bad stooges.

[metaldams]

     Dreadful.  Awful.  Not even a hint of a laugh.  They've turned Buster into a zombified Elmer, a microcephalic retarded hillbilly.  Not even an attempt at satire or self-awareness at all. This is proto-Beverly Hillbillies without even a shred of  humor.  These  backwoods morons make the Beverly Hillbillies sound like the Algonquin Round Table. This is Rollo Treadway?  This is Johnny Gray?  Even " Elmer " is less brain-dead than this.  That's a great sequence with Bud Jamison?  Sorry, no.  Having his hat knocked off repeatedly is not a great sequence,  nor is  having his head stuck in the elevator, especially since neither sequence is in the least funny.  The comedy would have lain in making the newlyweds the leads, and Elmer's family the irritants, a la Green Acres.  That may have been the original plan,  but the newlyweds are certainly not strong enough to be Oliver and Lisa Douglas,  and Buster/Elmer has no strong or sly country smarts, and aside from the idea about the trailer, he has no real smarts at all.   Someone might have thought it was cute to have Buster's family in the cast, although more likely he finagled them on the payroll, but they're at best blandly competent, and, sorry to say, photogenically unattractive.
     There's a famous Variety headline which I'm sure you all know, " Stix Nix Hix Pix ".  This had to be one of those pix.  We've been discussing bad Stooges vs. Bad Buster, and I'd contributed without seeing this one, but now that I've seen this, it now ranks for me almost with the tops of the bad stooges.

      You see no physical comedy whatsoever in that scene with Jamison?  Bud's reactions, Keaton taking the mop repeatedly and falling, Keaton's sister landing on her backside.  Keaton and Al St. John trying to muscle that cow out of the train in another scene, Keaton's Mom smacking the bell through the table.  Weaker compared to prime Keaton, fine, I get that.  A short for only seasoned Keaton fans, fine.  Almost as bad the worst Stooges shorts?  This is CITIZEN KANE next to HORSING AROUND.

[metaldams]

....I'll also add I just watched MUTTS TO YOU a few minutes ago and would rank this higher than that.  Now granted, that's weaker Curly, LOVE NEST ON WHEELS doesn't climb much higher than that in my eyes.  As a side note, I've been bulk watching Stooge shorts again for the first time since reviewing, quite enjoyable.

I will agree the couple is weak in this short.  Even as a Stooge character actor, Lynton Brent has never been a favorite of mine, this is no exception.  The slow hillbilly thing never bothered me.

[Big Chief Apumtagribonitz]

None of what you mention is memorable slapstick, to the extent of half of what you mentioned I didn't even remember in spite of having watched it only an hour or so before.  I would call it competent slapstick, could have been done by anybody.  And though we are all in awe of Buster's mechanical  slapstick skills when they are at their best, a string trolley knocking Bud's hat off is not huge, it's more mechanical than funny.  Be real, did you laugh out loud at this?  Or the elevator?  Buster and St John both try and pull the cow and slide under the trailer.  Sorry, neither repetition of the same joke  ( repeating a joke is a mortal sin in comedy, as you know ) kills me.
    As I've written, on the whole I like the Educationals, especially the earlier ones with sound effects and music ( all of you know I'm a sucker for that style of music ) , and I'm inclined to cut them all kinds of slack, but this one just sucks.  I know Educational was dying at about this point, and if Educational is turning out this kind of comedy with Buster Keaton,  it's a toss-up of who's dying first: Educational or Keaton.  Luckily, it was Educational.

[metaldams]

None of what you mention is memorable slapstick, to the extent of half of what you mentioned I didn't even remember in spite of having watched it only an hour or so before.  I would call it competent slapstick, could have been done by anybody.  And though we are all in awe of Buster's mechanical  slapstick skills when they are at their best, a string trolley knocking Bud's hat off is not huge, it's more mechanical than funny.  Be real, did you laugh out loud at this?  Or the elevator?  Buster and St John both try and pull the cow and slide under the trailer.  Sorry, neither repetition of the same joke  ( repeating a joke is a mortal sin in comedy, as you know ) kills me.
    As I've written, on the whole I like the Educationals, especially the earlier ones with sound effects and music ( all of you know I'm a sucker for that style of music ) , and I'm inclined to cut them all kinds of slack, but this one just sucks.  I know Educational was dying at about this point, and if Educational is turning out this kind of comedy with Buster Keaton,  it's a toss-up of who's dying first: Educational or Keaton.  Luckily, it was Educational.

I think Buster falling with the mop was done in a Buster style other comedians could not replicate and Buster and Al St. John showed great physical skill pulling trying to pull that cow out.  Buster to the point of almost sliding under the trailer and the vertical way St. John held himself up was impressive.  I did not laugh out loud (something I don't do often, unfortunately), but I did watch in awe and was entertained.  I also liked Bud Jamison getting angry and the way he refers to Buster as, "young man."

Hey, to each their own.

[Umbrella Sam]

Eh...at least the cast is good, even if they’re not given a whole lot to work with. Like PALOOKA FROM PADUCAH, it is interesting to see how similar Buster’s family was to him when it came to physical comedy, and this time we actually get to see his brother take part in the action. However, also like PALOOKA FROM PADUCAH, this short suffers from taking a slow, rural approach. In general, I’ve never been particularly fond of these types of hillbilly comedies, even stuff like THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES. Seriously, is there even one good hillbilly comed...



Well, OK, that one’s pretty good. As a whole, though, this is just not a genre that I’ve ever really understood the appeal to. LOVE NEST ON WHEELS also suffers from the fact that it’s essentially a remake of THE BELL BOY and the much slower pacing makes it feel lazy compared to the original, even if that may not have been the intention.

I will agree with metaldams on the scene with Bud and his hat. Overall, I did like the timing on that scene from all the people involved. Otherwise, though, I do have to agree that LOVE NEST ON WHEELS was a pretty weak way to end the series, unlike how the similarly named THE LOVE NEST ended Keaton’s silent short run a decade earlier.

4 out of 10

I know I’ve been pretty negative on the Educational shorts, but there were shorts that I genuinely enjoyed and would be willing to check out again, especially ONE RUN ELMER, GRAND SLAM OPERA, and JAIL BAIT. It is nice to see that Keaton did have more opportunities to do the type of films that he wanted to do in the sound era than I had thought previously. I just wish that more of these types of films could have resulted. Hey, could have been worse. Keaton’s sister could have been reincarnated as a horse.

On a side note, I had no idea until recently that MUTTS TO YOU was so hated by Stooge fans. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen that short, but I don’t recall hating it. I’ll have to check it out again.

[metaldams]

Sam, if you do check out MUTTS TO YOU again, please post your thoughts.  I always like seeing old short threads updated and am curious as to your thoughts.

Also, your top three of ONE RUN ELMER, GRAND SLAM OPERA and JAIL BAIT I agree with.  The others have their moments but aren't quite on the same level.  I think THE GOLD GHOST is excellent in the parts where it's just Keaton and ALLEZ-OOP he actually has chemistry with leading lady.  An interesting batch of films all around, glad you and Chief pitched in.

[Paul Pain]

It was a mostly dreadful 18 minutes indeed.  There were a couple laughs in this.  The first was when Buster and Al slipped under the trailer.  The other was when Lynton Brent fell down the stairs.  Was it as bad as HORSING AROUND?  No.  But it was as bad as an average Besser-era Stooges short.  Essentially a weak remake of THE BELL BOY.  I can check this one off my list though.