IOU: Buster Keaton: A Hard Act to Follow (1987)

Who I Owe: I met illustrator/author Matt Phelan recently at Book Expo. The company I work for publishes some of his books for children. Phelan told me that he was currently working on a graphic novel for younger kids on the childhood of Buster Keaton (see a preview of the artwork for the book here). I got really excited because I love Buster Keaton! We chatted about Keaton for a while and he told me about this great documentary on the life of Keaton called Buster Keaton: A Hard Act to Follow. He mentioned that it was available on YouTube and I promised that I would watch it. And so I did! Thanks Matt Phelan for the recommendation and I'm so excited for your book to come out!

Review: Buster Keaton: A Hard Act to Follow was a 3 part British TV Mini-Series about the life and career of the great physical comedian of the silent film era. Watching the documentary and I realize how much I appreciate contemporary documentaries and how they clearly indicate who it is that is being interviewed. It took me a while to understand that it was Eleanor Keaton, Keaton's third and last wife, speaking!

The show follows Keaton's life and career from the very beginning to the bitter end. It starts in those early days in Vaudeville, when he got the name Buster after falling down some stairs, an event witnessed by the great Harry Houdini who then proclaimed that that was quite a Buster! We see the rise, the very bad fall and then the subsequent slow rise again.

I learned many things about Keaton. He had impeccable timing, a fearlessness that made for incredible shots, a talent for subtlety and a genius for comedy. Keaton was really an actor destined for the silent screen and talkies did him very few favors. He took to alcohol which almost killed him and even with all his success he still had many money problems. However, he still had a wonderful career, fame and recognition that lasted a lot longer than he expected and a long and fruitful life. That's a lot more than many of us get. It was great to watch the documentary and to see how spectacular his stunts really were. Put into context of how dangerous and groundbreaking they were makes you really appreciate Keaton's work. Keaton never complained about injuries! He had a high threshold for pain. Seeing snippets of many of Keaton's films made me want to watch more. And it made a new Keaton fan out of Carlos too!

I created a playlist of all the 10 minute YouTube segments of the documentary. You can watch it here. I'd love to hear what you think. And many thanks to Matt Phelan for recommending this to me!

IOU: The Grub-Stake (1923)

Who I owe: Poet and Musician John "Jack" Hayes from Robert Frost's Banjo and I met March of last year. We had breakfast in Concord, MA and during breakfast John told me about a silent film that he and Eberle composed and performed the music for. The movie was The Grub-Stake (1923). He also told me a lot about Nell Shipman and sent me a copy of The Nell Shipman Collection Volume 3 which contained The Grub-Stake. I had the film in my to-watch stack for too long. Way too long. Now I'm making amends and discovering how wonderful Nell Shipman, the movie and the music all were. Thanks John!

In John's Words:  Eberle Umbach and I composed the music to Nell Shipman’s “The Grub-Stake” in 2005-2006, following our first silent film score, for Shipman’s “Back to God’s Country,” which we composed in 2004-2005. The late Tom Trusky, director of the Idaho Film Collection, commissioned our score for the release of Shipman’s complete existing works in a DVD collection. Mr Trusky was a wonderful man, a Shipman scholar and largely responsible for the re-discovery of her work, and he was very kind and supportive of our music.

The score uses 18 instruments, from the very familiar, like the guitar and the flute, to the more obscure, like the zither, melodica, slide whistle and marimba, as well as variations on common instruments, such as the tenor guitar, toy piano and the plectrum banjo. Eberle and I wrote the score so that it could be performed live as written, so there were a lot of instrument switches! But at least one of us keeps a steady background of music going throughout the entire film, and we play as a duo the majority of the time.


We incorporated a number of different musical genres in the score—from ragtime to bossa nova, and with a number of other musical gestures in between. Eberle in particular strove to capture an old-time Americana feel in much of the music. When we scored and performed these silent films, we did so under the name of the Bijou Orchestrette.

Review: First of all, let's talk about Nell Shipman. Wow. What a woman. Hailing from Canada, Nell Shipman was a one-woman movie making machine. She founded the Shipman Curwood Producing Company as well as the Nell Shipman Productions. Nell Shipman wrote, acted, directed, produced, marketing, funded and cast her acting crew. And this is in the 1910s and 1920s! Early film history has a severe deficit of female directors. So for Nell Shipman to be able to do what she did is amazing. She was independent, a business woman and creative to boot. Also, she shot a lot of her films on location, in the wild and did a lot of "stunts" herself. She was also an animal trainer and used some of her animals in The Grub-Stake. Wow! I'm so impressed by her. I'm also hypnotized by Nell. She wasn't a gorgeous woman but she has a very inviting face and a curvaceous figure. I couldn't help but be mesmerized by her on screen.

The Grub-Stake (1923) was one of Shipman's biggest pictures. With a $180,000 budget, she shot the film on location in Washington State and Idaho (even though the plot mostly takes place in Alaska). Unfortunately, the distributor of the film went under so the film never made it out to theaters. And it also bankrupted Nell Shipman's production company. She couldn't take care of her animals financially after that either and had to send them to the San Diego Zoo. A sad ending to a good project.

The film follows the story of Faith Diggs, a small town girl whose father is in poor health. She takes on odd jobs (and even sells her to make ends meet and to help her dad out but it isn't enough. So Faith grub-stakes an older businessman. What does the term grub-stake mean?

Basically, she promises to work for the man, and then accepts his proposal of marriage, in exchange for his help. The man brings Faith and her father to Alaska. But turns out the man has sold Faith to a brothel! And he's already married! What's a girl to do? She escapes with a friend, her father and a bunch of sled dogs and finds refuge in the wilds of the Klondike. She gets separated from her father for a while, befriending some bears and other wild animals. And the drama continues as she falls in love with another man and her "husband" sends out a bounty hunter for her (and the dogs she stole). The film moves at a steady pace but doesn't have that many dull moments. Nell Shipman really milked the ending though, which could have been much shorter than it was.

I think John and Eberle did a wonderful job with the music. The different instruments suited the plot which was very varied itself. I loved the American folk feel to it and it's pretty cool that a film from Idaho has music played by residents of that state! I'm sure composing music for a silent film is no easy task so kudos to John and Eberle for doing such a fantastic job giving sound to such a vibrant film.

IOU: Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)

Who I Owe: My good friend Kevin gave me a copy of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) eons ago. It was so long ago I don't remember why he gave it to me. It could be for various reasons. He got a newer enhanced version of the DVD and passed down his older version to me (I've gotten several really great films this way!). I created a boxed set of films that tested the Hays Code/Production Code back in grad school. This film was very influential in bringing down the code in the 1960s which was then replaced with a rating system. It's a depressing film and boy does Kevin like depressing films. I apologize to Kevin for being so late to the game in watching this one!

Review: Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) (TCM link) is based on Edward Albee's play by the same name. It's the only film to have been nominated for every single Oscar category in the Academy Awards (although now with so many categories, that will be impossible to achieve again). It won 5 including Best Actress (Elizabeth Taylor) and Best Cinematography (Haskell Wexler). It's the 4th out of the 11 films real-life couple Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton made together. It also co-stars Sandy Dennis (who miscarried during the filming) and George Segal. Elizabeth Taylor gained 30 pounds for the role and looks noticeably different with special makeup and some gray hairs. Oh and the swears! Everything from "god damn you" to "bitch" is used. My favorite phrases include "angel boobs", "monkey nipples" and "hump the hostess".

Elizabeth Taylor plays Martha, the daughter of the president of a Northampton, MA college and wife to History professor George (Richard Burton). They like to play very emotionally abusive games with each other and shouting matches are regular conversations from them. They have Biology professor Nick (George Segal) and his demure wife Honey (Sandy Dennis) over for drinks. With the liquour flowing, the mind games start and they get worse as the film goes on. Then there is the question of Martha and George's son. Where is he?

My reaction? This film is fucked up. Twisted. Demented. It messes with your brain. It's angry and loud. It's uncomfortable to watch yet the cinematography will hypnotize you. Each actor delivers wonderful performances, the dialogue is cutting and frank, there are no subtelties here. It's all shoved right into your face. Even though I own it now, I think I will put this film away until I forget the details. So I can pick it up again and be newly traumatized. So Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? I am!