Topic: The Columbia Keatons on DVD? Could be...

[BeAStooge]

http://forums.goldenagecartoons.com/showthread.php?t=5081

Word is circulating (link above) that Sony/Columbia plans to release Buster Keaton's Columbia short subjects to DVD in 2006. An official studio press release is still pending, but the information seems to be reliable.

We've screened some of these shorts the past few years at the Fan Club Meeting, particularly PEST FROM THE WEST (1939) which costarred Lorna Gray. They certainly aren't Keaton's best work, but they are much better than their reputation. Directed by Jules White (& one by Del Lord), as Columbia short subjects they're filled with familiar
Three Stooges costars like Lorna Gray, Monty Collins, Bud Jamison, Vernon Dent, Ned Glass, Dorothy Appleby, Richard Fiske, Gino Corrado, Eddie Laughton, Bruce Bennett, Lynton Brent, John Tyrell, Cy Schindell, more...

[Pilsner Panther]

That would be great, I'd love to see those. So far, I've only seen three of them, "Pest From The West," "Pardon My Berth Marks," and "Nothing But Pleasure," at a Keaton Festival in New York City a few years back. I just hope that Sony doesn't colorize them! 

As of right now, you can get two of Buster's Educational Pictures sound shorts on the Kino Video DVD "Keaton Plus." This series was supposedly the low point of his career, but the two selected for the DVD, "Allez-Oop" and "Jail Bait" are actually pretty funny, and they reunite Buster with some of his co-stars from the silent era: Dorothy Sebastian, Harold Goodwin, and The Flying Escalantes acrobatic troupe.

Educational was an extremely low-budget studio, though, and their production values make Columbia's look lavish by comparison.

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