The Navigator

(1924) directors Donald Crisp, Buster Keaton
viewed: 10/01/10

It had been a while since we’d watched a Buster Keaton film for Friday night movie night, quite a while for a silent film in general, so I wrangled Buster Keaton’s The Navigator to play for the kids and myself.  Of the several Keaton features that we’ve watched together, I think that The Navigator is more of a second drawer film, not achieving the greatness of Sherlock Jr. (1924), Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928) or The General (1927), or even Our Hospitality (1923) or Go West (1925).  But that’s fairly quibbling, since the former three are all masterpieces and the latter two are total genius.

And that is not to say that the kids didn’t enjoy themselves.  By the end of the film, with cannibals raging to take over the Navigator and Keaton and his gal shooting off fireworks galore, the kids were howling with laughter and fully wound up.  Great joy for all.

The Navigator is the name of the a large ship upon which Keaton, playing a wealthy useless fop, and his would-be fiancee find themselves adrift, all on their lonesome.  Some of the initial gags revolve around their uselessness on the ship, never having had to fend for themselves in a kitchen, much less aboard a large ship with no crew.  But the film kicks up a notch or two when they become lodged on a reef near an island of cannibals (not your most politically correct depiction of native peoples, as I’m sure you can imagine).  And Keaton also has to don a large old fashioned diving suit to go under water to repair a leak that the ship has developed.  And the battle with the cannibals, as I mentioned above.

Though I am eager to see all of Keaton’s features, I’m a little tempted to re-view Steamboat Bill, Jr. with them because that was the funniest and the biggest round of laughs.  Also there are lots of collections of Keaton’s short films which we’ve watched before too.  Felix is just now 9 and Clara is 6 1/2 at this viewing, so the first time around they were much younger.  I can only imagine that they’ll enjoy it even more.