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Three on a Limb (1936) - Buster Keaton

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Offline metaldams



      We're back to Charles Lamont directing and I guess a sober Keaton, though honestly, I don't notice the difference as far as the latter goes.  Good for Buster, though.  Basically we have a good but not great comedy short again.  Any comedian could have done this comedy, the only special touches Keaton really gave are the infatuated gaze he gave Lona Andre as she was taking his order...it's as if he worships the beautiful girl of his is desire like no other, and the fall he takes mid short as he runs with the fire hose.  That moment is absolutely a Keaton trademark, the man was ancient at this point, about age 40, you know, my age, and I can't do that shit.  I can't sit down and type this review without an acupuncture thingy on my mid spine, never mind do a 360 twirl mid air, so yeah, Buster's the man.

      Stooge fans, first waitress at the beginning of the short is none other than Phyllis Crane!  Slightly underused here, she's shown in Stooge shorts she probably has more talent than Lona Andre, but since Lona is the classic beauty while Phyllis looks like the girl next door....we all know who gets higher billing.  I'm different as I prefer girl next door anyway and come to think of it, Phyllis looks like a good friend of mine. 

      The ending confusion over the marriage scene was done much better in BRIDELESS GROOM.  More variation of interesting characters doing interesting gags (think pretty brunette with sass putting Shemp's head in a vice, Emil Sitka's classic performance as well as each individual Stooge, variety of gags, etc.), versus the bland way they run the same gag of having the Justice of the peace marry different guys to the girl.  Lack of variety, and the way they skip to the final result without showing an array of gags leading to the result feels rushed.

      An OK short, perfectly serviceable, but not one of Keaton's best.  Next time we discuss Keaton, we get to talk about GRAND SLAM OPERA, generally considered the masterpiece of the Educational shorts...and it was even Keaton's favorite.  Tune in in two weeks and we shall see.

     
- Doug Sarnecky


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My least favorite Educational so far, and I've thought that in general they've been O K.  This one's pretty dumb.  He's a scout?  That's a pastime, not a job    ( and BTW, ninety years later, a very questionable pastime ).  And Daddy's right, you can't light a fire by rubbing two sticks together.  There's a video on YouTube that shows you how to do it, but it takes a special kind if wood and some kind of cactus which, as I remember, are only available in a remote part of New Mexico, and any old ( and I do mean old, like me ) cub scout can tell you that you'll die of old age before you'll light a fire by rubbing two of Elmer's hefty pieces of kindling together.  Except then it ignites, and lights the joint on fire.  No.  No.  Just no.  It also seems apparent that by any standards Elmer is the least of the three suitors - the girl might not like the other two, but why in the world would she like Elmer?  She marries him on the strength of a lift home?  In the previous ones, you feel nice for Elmer when he ends up hitched, since he has in his own modest, pathetic way proven his mettle, but in this one you can only feel bad for the girl and her rash life choices.  Elmer's truly on the spectrum in this one.  He rode to school on the short bus.  And BTW, in the early going of these reviews I didn't realize that once Buster was named Elmer he was going to be Elmer forever.  Not having seen all of these flicks, I had gathered that Elmer was a generic name, like  Homer or Doofus.  No such luck, I see now.  He's always Elmer.  Dirty damn shame that such an imaginative character as he was 1917-1928 should be degraded into a dumb bohunk.  He was much better as spoiled rich kid Rollo, or Johnny Gray, but I guess it would have been too expensive to keep those upper or middle class ( or in Johnny Gray's case, of humble means but massively heroic ) characters going in the Poverty Row environs of Educational.  I only now realize what a rotten trick was played on Buster's career in the talkies, and sadly, Buster was partially at fault when he insisted that his talking be kept to a minimum, which stipulation seems to have been honored, in all of the Educationals anyway.  The result of this, which might have been pulled off with excellent script writing, was, with Educational's extremely mediocre script writing, to make the Buster/Elmer character a monosyllabic dunce.


Offline Umbrella Sam

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Yeah, I’m not fond of this one either. It’s not HIS EX MARKS THE SPOT bad, though it does really fall into Elmer terrritory. The only real comedy moments of note are with the fire hose, and even that gets old pretty fast. Otherwise, it’s just Keaton’s character making a fool out of himself and causing pain to others, such as dropping food on people, backing into other cars, causing a fire, etc.

The ending is really cluttered. Though we see Homer from the beginning and Oscar is mentioned, Oscar doesn’t appear until the end. Plus, like Big Chief said, why would she want to marry Elmer? She even complains at one point about the messes he’s gotten her into. In THE TIMID YOUNG MAN, despite its problems with character development, you can kind of understand their affection due to their mutual problems. Here, it almost seems as though Molly is marrying him out of pity. While he’s probably a better choice than the two-timing Oscar, they don’t really make Homer unlikeable enough to the point where Elmer seems like a better choice.

Keaton may have been sober when this was made, but you get the feeling that with this kind of writing, he didn’t really know what to do to actually make it funny. Again, it’s not frustratingly bad like HIS EX MARKS THE SPOT or FREE AND EASY, but it’s so cluttered and boring that it’s rather sad to watch as a Keaton fan, knowing he could do so much better.

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 metaldams

I agree with both of your criticisms.  I think I'm easy on these weaker Educationals because I've seen the silents so many times and unlike the weaker MGM features, they're over quick.  So there's a freshness factor for me and I appreciate what bits of good Keaton there is.  I recently watched MY WIFE'S RELATIONS, one of the lesser films for a Keaton silent, and even that mops the floor with THREE ON A LIMB.  The best Educationals are of course still good.
- Doug Sarnecky


Offline Umbrella Sam

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I agree with both of your criticisms.  I think I'm easy on these weaker Educationals because I've seen the silents so many times and unlike the weaker MGM features, they're over quick.  So there's a freshness factor for me and I appreciate what bits of good Keaton there is.  I recently watched MY WIFE'S RELATIONS, one of the lesser films for a Keaton silent, and even that mops the floor with THREE ON A LIMB.  The best Educationals are of course still good.

I think part of the reason I’ve been harder on the recent films is because of how good the best Educationals are. Unlike the MGMS, where even the best films aren’t really all that interesting, there are some pretty good Educational films like ONE RUN ELMER, so seeing lesser efforts is so much more disappointing knowing that he actually could do so much more at this studio, but didn’t. And unlike at Columbia, where Jules White can easily be blamed for his directing style, it’s clear from entries like ONE RUN ELMER that Charles Lamont allowed for more creative freedom, so these should be much better than they are. Here’s hoping GRAND SLAM OPERA is as good as people have built it up to be.
“I’ll take a milkshake...with sour milk!” -Shemp (Punchy Cowpunchers, 1950)

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


Offline Paul Pain

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I can't really say anything great or awful about this one.  It's typical Educational pictures... lousy script all the way through.  Too much was jammed into 18 minutes for this to really anything good.  I am no fan of BRIDELESS GROOM, but I'd rather watch that than this any day of the week.  The best moment was the woman screaming for Oscar to help her.

Buster has some good moments, but overall he's in full Elmer mode on this one.  And.  Elmer.  Mode.  Sucks.

4/10 [poke] [poke] [poke] [poke]
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