Is there anything in life funnier than Buster Keaton at his best? Directed by James W. Horne, College isn't Keaton's best (his Sherlock, Jr. and The Navigator are unavailable on video), but it gives him full rein to show off his extraordinary athletic prowess as a stuffy student who fails, hilariously, at every sport imaginable, as well as his tryout as a soda jerk. And Keaton's combination of deadpan precision and painful tumbles never fails.
Charlie Chaplin is top billed on the box for Tillie's Punctured
Romance, the first feature-length comedy in movie history-and he has
many choice moments as a shady city slicker in this Mack
Sennett-directed film. But the true star is Marie Dressler as the
grotesque farmer's daughter Chaplin pursues through various
calamities. Kino does an excellent job of restoring silent films like
these, and it used more than one print to assemble a complete version
of Romance (73 minutes, as opposed to the previous video edition of
38 minutes). The result is surprisingly entertaining. Often dismissed
as a historic curio, this adaptation of a Broadway show is also
buoyed by the outsize performances of Chaplin, Mabel Normand, and
several other comedians.
College: B+
Tillie's Punctured Romance: B
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