Buster Keaton in "The Frozen North" (1922) скачать в хорошем качестве

Buster Keaton in "The Frozen North" (1922)

Keaton plays a caricature of William S. Hart’s screen persona in the frozen north. He lives in a town that's so far north, the North Pole is "three miles south," and it's the "last stop on the subway." He's melodramatic machismo (cigarette flip), questionable ethics (two-gun firing), and saccharine pathos (tears and all). Keaton uses a cardboard wanted poster (a cutout of Hart) as his partner in order to rob locals, and hold up a tavern/gambling house. This doesn't go well. He makes an escape and thinks he is in the clear, only to return home to a real surprise. This bad man bursts into a house that he thinks is his, only to see a woman he thinks is his wife in the arms of another man. In a fit of passion he shoots them dead, only to quickly realize, it isn't his cabin after all, and he has shot the wrong wife in the wrong house. As if murder weren't enough, he eschews his own wife (Sybil Seely) and brings flowers to his married neighbor (Bonnie Hill), spending the rest of the movie running from the woman's husband. An American black & white Western parody comedy silent short film written & directed by Edward F. Cline & Buster Keaton, produced by Joseph M. Schenck, photographed by Elgin Lessley, starring Keaton, Cline, Bonnie Hill, Joe Roberts and Freeman Wood. Final film of Sybil Seely. Another of Keaton’s venture into informal surrealism. He callously dances with his wife’s unconscious body, vacuums an igloo, plays tennis with snowballs, disguises himself as Sam the Snowman, and is envisioned as Erich von Stroheim by a woman who he is trying to rape. Keaton also pays brief homage to vamp Theda Bara, but it all turns out to be a dream. The film is a parody of early western films, especially those of William S. Hart. Keaton wears a small version of Hart's campaign hat from the Spanish–American War and a six-shooter on each thigh, and during the scene in which he shoots the neighbor and her husband, he reacts with thick glycerin tears, a trademark of Hart's. Keaton spoofs Hart's demeanor, and comically attempts Hart's iconic one handed cigarette roll. Keaton spends a lot of time standing and staring to imply Hart's wooden acting, which is reinforced in the scene where he puts a picture of a cowboy in a doorway to dupe gamblers, and the image on the picture is Hart. Audiences of the 1920s recognized the parody and thought the film hysterically funny. However, Hart himself was not amused by Keaton's antics, particularly the crying scene, and did not speak to Keaton for two years after he had seen the film. The comedy also briefly parodies Erich von Stroheim's womanizing character from the film Foolish Wives. In contrast to Hart, von Stroheim was delighted with the parody of his character. The film followed Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle's arrest for the rape and manslaughter of actress Virginia Rappe. While studio executives ordered Arbuckle's industry friends and fellow actors (whose careers they controlled) not to publicly speak up for him, Keaton did make a public statement in support of Arbuckle's innocence. However, William S. Hart, who had never met or worked with Arbuckle, made a number of damaging public statements in which he presumed that Arbuckle was guilty. Arbuckle later wrote a premise for a film parodying Hart as a thief, bully and wife beater which Keaton purchased from him. Hart was widely believed in the industry to be "prone to domestic violence" and Keaton believed that Hart was helping to convict Arbuckle. Keaton produced, directed and starred in The Frozen North, the film that resulted. The film was an implied insult to William S. Hart, who released public statements against Buster Keaton's friend Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle during his arrest and subsequent trial. Hart refused to talk to Keaton for many years after the film. Arbuckle, it seems, was one of Keaton's best friends, indeed, Keaton's career, which began in 1917, was greatly assisted by Arbuckle. A chance meeting with Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle changed his life forever. Arbuckle had been making movie shorts with Mack Sennett and was just starting at Joseph Schenck's studio. He asked Keaton to do a scene with him in "The Butcher Boy" (1917). Keaton agreed and a lifelong friendship began. Keaton worked with Arbuckle until 1919, when in September of that year he began making his own films. Keaton was one of the few Hollywood stars that publicly came to Arbuckle's defense both during and after the comedian's arrest, court cases and final acquittal. The humor here is atypical with Keaton, one of the greatest film comedians of all time, at his blackest, bleakest, and strangest. With its Yukon scenes, it clearly influenced Charlie Chaplin‘s "The Gold Rush" (1925). Many of the gag sequences from this film, including the fishing sequence and wearing guitars as snowshoes while carrying a mattress, were used by The Three Stooges in "Rockin' thru the Rockies" (1940). This is pure Keaton, however uneven, but not one of his better shorts.