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The Timid Young Man (1935) - Buster Keaton and Mack Sennett

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Offline metaldams



      Did Buster Keaton ever work with Mack Sennett?  Short answer, yes.  THE TIMID YOUNG MAN is their sole collaboration.  A lot of people think they worked together in the silent era, but it never happened.  Keaton debuted with Arbuckle and by this time, Arbuckle had left Sennett and was with Paramount.  It took until 1935 for their paths to finally cross when neither man was in his prime.  Sennett's studio closed down two years earlier in 1933 after starting up in 1912.  A couple of years later, Sennett went to Educational to produce and direct two shorts, this being the first, the second being a Joan Davis short which had Buster's mom and sister in it.  They would be the last two films Sennett would ever do, so we're watching the end of a highly influential and fruitful career this week in the producer and director department. 

      It's sad Keaton and Sennett didn't get to work together with time and a budget.  Both men in the twenties were the masters of spectacle, especially Sennett when it came to cars.  So many wonderful car chases and crashes in Sennett's shorts, and we have the opportunity for it here twice, yet a lack of time and budget does them in.  First is when Keaton and Tiny Sanford go head to head with their cars on the dirt cliff road.  No doubt somebody has to go down, and indeed Sanford does.  All we get, though, is three awkward, jumpy edits where we basically see Sanford stuck on the bottom.  In Sennett's heyday, that fall would have been an awesome crash much better filmed.  A dirt cliff road and a car screams Sennett, but Sennett had to have been frustrated with his limited resources here.  Same with the ending.  Keaton has to bump his car into five or six other cars in front of him to push them out of the way to get to his girl.  In the twenties, that would have been a multi car pile up for the ages.  Here, it's one shot from behind that ends suddenly without a whimper.  A shame their sense of wit and spectacle didn't get the proper airing it deserved with these car sequences.

      We get Lona Andre as the girl this week. She's just OK until the second reel, when she wears a bathing suit.  She puts the beauty in bathing beauty, no doubt why she was there.  Mack Sennett had a few girls in bathing suits appear in films during his day  ::) Well, there's one Sennett tradition continued, though with a bigger budget there'd be more of them, and they'd be on a beach playing baseball or volleyball or something.

     For a Buster perspective, the best scene is definitely the catching fish with jumping beans bit, incredibly clever, funny, and worthy of Buster.  There's some slight pantomime moments too worth catching, like the way he eyes Ms. Andre while leaning his body weight on the chair or when he jumps through the raft when he has water thrown on him in bed.

      Tiny Sanford's character is about as Harvey Weinstein like as one can be in a code film, and Kitty McHugh is pleasantly battle ax like in her scenes.  No Al Thompson this week.

      A very interesting and historical film that has its moments, it's just a shame this wasn't made ten years earlier....it would have been so much better.  Also amazing to think after all my reviews, this is the first time I've ever gotten to Mack Sennett.

- Doug Sarnecky


Offline Big Chief Apumtagribonitz

Well, O K, about par for an Educational, nothing great but nothing embarrassing.  That's as much acting as I've seen Tiny Sanford do, he's certainly loathsome, one wonders if in 1935 this was acceptable, even if obviously aggressive, macho behavior.  He could get arrested nowadays, at least if he got caught.
     Kitty McHugh is interesting here, if she had those glasses on she's the girl whom Curly invited to cut herself a slice of throat, but she acts like Mrs. Magruder from 20 years later.  Obviously she had more than one arrow in her quiver.  Always felt that Curly treated the glasses girl badly BTW, same as Charity in Back to the Woods.  And Charity especially, as I remember we all agreed, is a babe.  Seems that the trope then was that Harold Lloyd glasses made a girl ugly, same as the contemporaneous Dorothy Parker poem.  Glad that that's passe.  I assume that Kitty is sister to the two acting McHugh brothers.
     Another happy ending for Buster, especially so since he's also not Elmer.  Milton ( I think it's Milton ) is better.  One gets used over the years to things ending badly for him, whatever the character's name is, but in the Educationals, even if it breaks the unities a bit, it's refreshing that he gets some happy endings.  We like to see the young people happy.


Offline metaldams

Well, O K, about par for an Educational, nothing great but nothing embarrassing.  That's as much acting as I've seen Tiny Sanford do, he's certainly loathsome, one wonders if in 1935 this was acceptable, even if obviously aggressive, macho behavior.  He could get arrested nowadays, at least if he got caught.
     Kitty McHugh is interesting here, if she had those glasses on she's the girl whom Curly invited to cut herself a slice of throat, but she acts like Mrs. Magruder from 20 years later.  Obviously she had more than one arrow in her quiver.  Always felt that Curly treated the glasses girl badly BTW, same as Charity in Back to the Woods.  And Charity especially, as I remember we all agreed, is a babe.  Seems that the trope then was that Harold Lloyd glasses made a girl ugly, same as the contemporaneous Dorothy Parker poem.  Glad that that's passe.  I assume that Kitty is sister to the two acting McHugh brothers.
     Another happy ending for Buster, especially so since he's also not Elmer.  Milton ( I think it's Milton ) is better.  One gets used over the years to things ending badly for him, whatever the character's name is, but in the Educationals, even if it breaks the unities a bit, it's refreshing that he gets some happy endings.  We like to see the young people happy.

      Yes, Kitty was the sister of Frank and Matt and is definitely closer to her fifteen years later Mrs. McGruder demeanor than her Hoi Polloi self, the latter of which she was contemporary with.  You're right, it does show acting chops.

      Totally agree about the girl in glasses thing.....if that was considered ugly at one time, it's completely passed me by.
- Doug Sarnecky


Offline Big Chief Apumtagribonitz

I think we can rank Kitty McHugh alongside Harrison Green in stooge lore for each having created two separate characters so different as to be utterly unrecognizable from the other: Kitty for Miss Cut Yourself a Slice of Throat ( does she have a name? ) and Mrs Magruder; and Harrison Green for Mr Mauser and Bustoff.  Had I not read the contributions from the Dizzy Detectives on this site, I would never have figured out either one of those, and of course kudos to McHugh and Green for their diffuse acting chops.  Kitty may have had the edge with the fifteen-year gap, whereas Green did both characters in - what? - maybe a year.  Good stuff.


Offline metaldams

Paging through James Neibauer's Buster book, (linked below), and it looks like it was right after THE TIMID YOUNG MAN was filmed that Buster took care of his alcohol problem.  The press release of the time said he had the flu.  I think a late in life 1955 Bela Lugosi is the first time I'm aware where an actor went public with their substance issue.

https://www.amazon.com/Fall-Buster-Keaton-Educational-Pictures/dp/0810876825/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1541887719&sr=1-1&keywords=Buster+Keaton+MGM
- Doug Sarnecky


Offline Umbrella Sam

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I’ve always had mixed feelings about the Mack Sennett style of filmmaking. I absolutely love the fast style chases he often used, especially those with the Keystone Kops, and the stunt work in these is interesting to watch for just how much was required. Unfortunately, his style was very repetitive. His studio had a factory-like work approach that produced lots of output, but also resulted in highly formulaic films, often relying on the same brand of knockabout humor used in every film as well as few interesting characters or stories. To Sennett’s credit, THE TIMID YOUNG MAN does avoid his old repetitive style and he did seem to allow Keaton a bit of creative freedom, but it’s not particularly funny and most of the major characters are dull or, in Tiny Sandford’s case, creepy.

There are a few promising moments, notably the scene metaldams mentioned with Keaton bumping the cars out of the way. Keaton also does a few falls when he and Lona Andre are setting up camp. I also like Keaton’s method for being able to catch the fish with jumping beans.

Lona Andre isn’t necessarily bad in her performance, but like in many of his old shorts, Sennett gives almost no background information about her. We see her leave a wedding that we’re left to assume is arranged, with almost no information about the guy she’s supposed to marry, and none of those characters ever appear in the short again. Keaton is resourceful with the jumping beans, though the short does still show signs of Elmer, especially when he messes up all the cooking Andre is attempting. Tiny Sandford is extremely unlikeable, which makes sense as the main antagonist, but what he does is just so out of line that it’s a complete horror to watch, right down there with Walter Long in ANY OLD PORT. The one really interesting performance is Kitty McHugh as Keaton’s fiancée. Honestly, it’s just really funny to see how angry she can get. Watching this, I think she actually may have made a good choice to play Mrs. Hardy had Mae Busch not been available for SONS OF THE DESERT.

I suppose THE TIMID YOUNG MAN is interesting for curiosity’s sake given the collaboration between Keaton and Sennett, but unfortunately I just didn’t enjoy the result. This is the weakest Educational I’ve seen so far.

4 out of 10
“I’ll take a milkshake...with sour milk!” -Shemp (Punchy Cowpunchers, 1950)

My blog: https://talk-about-cinema.blogspot.com


Offline Umbrella Sam

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Paging through James Neibauer's Buster book, (linked below), and it looks like it was right after THE TIMID YOUNG MAN was filmed that Buster took care of his alcohol problem.  The press release of the time said he had the flu.  I think a late in life 1955 Bela Lugosi is the first time I'm aware where an actor went public with their substance issue.

https://www.amazon.com/Fall-Buster-Keaton-Educational-Pictures/dp/0810876825/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1541887719&sr=1-1&keywords=Buster+Keaton+MGM

Well, I guess that solves that question. Hopefully that means that the films increased somewhat in quality.
“I’ll take a milkshake...with sour milk!” -Shemp (Punchy Cowpunchers, 1950)

My blog: https://talk-about-cinema.blogspot.com


Offline metaldams

I’ve always had mixed feelings about the Mack Sennett style of filmmaking. I absolutely love the fast style chases he often used, especially those with the Keystone Kops, and the stunt work in these is interesting to watch for just how much was required. Unfortunately, his style was very repetitive. His studio had a factory-like work approach that produced lots of output, but also resulted in highly formulaic films, often relying on the same brand of knockabout humor used in every film as well as few interesting characters or stories. To Sennett’s credit, THE TIMID YOUNG MAN does avoid his old repetitive style and he did seem to allow Keaton a bit of creative freedom, but it’s not particularly funny and most of the major characters are dull or, in Tiny Sandford’s case, creepy.

There are a few promising moments, notably the scene metaldams mentioned with Keaton bumping the cars out of the way. Keaton also does a few falls when he and Lona Andre are setting up camp. I also like Keaton’s method for being able to catch the fish with jumping beans.

Lona Andre isn’t necessarily bad in her performance, but like in many of his old shorts, Sennett gives almost no background information about her. We see her leave a wedding that we’re left to assume is arranged, with almost no information about the guy she’s supposed to marry, and none of those characters ever appear in the short again. Keaton is resourceful with the jumping beans, though the short does still show signs of Elmer, especially when he messes up all the cooking Andre is attempting. Tiny Sandford is extremely unlikeable, which makes sense as the main antagonist, but what he does is just so out of line that it’s a complete horror to watch, right down there with Walter Long in ANY OLD PORT. The one really interesting performance is Kitty McHugh as Keaton’s fiancée. Honestly, it’s just really funny to see how angry she can get. Watching this, I think she actually may have made a good choice to play Mrs. Hardy had Mae Busch not been available for SONS OF THE DESERT.

I suppose THE TIMID YOUNG MAN is interesting for curiosity’s sake given the collaboration between Keaton and Sennett, but unfortunately I just didn’t enjoy the result. This is the weakest Educational I’ve seen so far.

4 out of 10

      There are a lot of Sennett films where things are going on so fast and nonsensical I can barely keep up.  Character was never a strong point, the only one he worked with at maturity was Harry Langdon.  I suppose W.C. Fields too, but that was near the end for Sennett.  However, there were also some shorts by the twenties where the chase scenes at the end were extremely awesome and were as good as Keaton and Lloyd, and there's no doubt Sennett was an important pioneer.

      As far as the use of Lona Andre, again, it's Sennett.  Character background for a male character was rare, nevermind female (unless if it was Mabel Normand in a feature).  I thought it was pretty blatant Sennett towards the end was giving a nod to his "Mack Sennett Bathing Beauty" formula when he trotted out Ms. Andre in a swimsuit and had the camera focus on her.  Even Carole Lombard started as a bathing beauty, though she obviously matured way past it.
- Doug Sarnecky


Offline Big Chief Apumtagribonitz

@ Sam:  Good point about Kitty McHugh  being Mrs Hardy.  Either Mrs Hardy, or especially Mrs Laurel, considering that Mae Busch or Daphne Pollard more or less cornered the market on Mrs Hardy.  There was wiggle room for casting Mrs Laurel, and it's possible to see Kitty as a very good fit.


Offline Paul Pain

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This video got pulled :(
I will look to see if I can find a replacement.

Edit: here's one
« Last Edit: June 28, 2019, 08:19:09 AM by Paul Pain »
#1 fire kibitzer


Offline Paul Pain

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Good God, that is 20 minutes of my life to never be seen again!  I couldn't believe how unlikable Tiny Sanford was and agree with Umbrella Sam's comparison to Walter Long in ANY OLD PORT.  Kitty McHugh made a fine battle axe, but besides that her character was mostly unfunny and unutterably detestable.  The only highlight was Buster falling on the folding chair and throwing the jumping beans in the water.  Otherwise, this was pure Elmer all the way. 

Shame that no one noticed that Lorna Andre's father was played by James C. Morton.

It's that time, folks...

This short can... 

BURN IN HELLTM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2/10 [poke] [poke]
#1 fire kibitzer


Offline Dr. Mabuse

It's a shame that Buster's only collaboration with Mack Sennett didn't hit a home run, but "The Timid Young Man" is hardly the worst Keaton Educational. The two-reeler certainly benefits from its outdoor setting, which gives Buster plenty of comic breathing room.  Unfortunately, the low budget occasionally rears its ugly head — resulting in a sloppy continuity error near the four-minute mark. After sitting through some terrible VHS copies, I encountered this surprisingly good 35mm print . . . and it makes a big difference.

5.5/10