From the National Film Board of Canada
Features: DVD, Dolby, Digital Audio, Mono Audio
Two Buster Keaton's for the price of one from the National Film Board of Canada. The great comic genius of the silent era still shines in these two programs. Buster Keaton Rides Again is a documentary filmed while Keaton was making The Railrodder. The 1965 documentary provides an absorbing portrait of Keaton relaxing, telling yarns and plotting the next day's action with considerable flair despite his age. When he recalls the gags he employed in the past, the video replays the old scenes. In his pork-pie hat and baggy pants, the star shows little noticeable change in appearance, or, for that matter, in the timing of his gags. Everyone, particularly Keaton's fans, will delight in this informal visit with the old pro. This is a memorable and intimate view of one of the most indestructible of slapstick comics. In The Railrodder, Keaton travels across Canada aboard an open railway trackspeeder. Perched on his seat, this endearing traveler chugs nonchalantly past some of Canada's most spectacular landmarks. Keaton draws the most laughs through his slapstick efforts to get comfortable on his bare conveyance. As he putt-putts his way from Nova Scotia to British Columbia, Keaton finds ways to shave, hunt geese, serve formal tea and do the laundry. These programs are a memorable and intimate view of a true comic genius.
Editor's Note
A late-career Buster Keaton double feature. "The Railrodder" (color, silent), Keaton's 87th film, features old stone face swimming across the Atlantic to take a grand tour of Canada on a gas-powered handcar. In the behind-the-scenes documentary, "Buster Keaton Rides Again" (B&W), the usually silent star is captured--speaking!--during the making of "The Railrodder."
Plot Summary
These two short films star that inimitable genius of slapstick comedy, Buster Keaton.| Made only a year before Keaton's death, "The Railrodder" sends the straight-faced actor out on the train tracks again -- a device that served him so well nearly 50 years before in "The General." With his trusty vehicles, and using his own special form of logic, Keaton manages to encounter, and overcome, obstacle after obstacle...| "Buster Keaton Rides Again" documents the making of this movie.
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