Today is the anniversary of the release of Buster Keaton’s 1923 comedy short The Balloonatic, co-written and directed with Eddie Cline.
This is a very episodic film…I found it “rambling” when I saw it, but on reflection the structure isn’t that out of line if you think of it as a fantasia, as so many of Keaton’s films are. The crux of it consists of some comical business at an amusement park, then Buster becomes adrift in a runaway balloon and comes down in a forested wilderness. Linking both episodes are Buster’s encounters with a girl (Phyllis Haver). Their “roughing it” adventures presage moments in later Keaton features like Battling Butler and The Navigator. This film (Keaton’s penultimate silent short) features a favorite gag: in trying to shoot a bear in front of him, Buster accidentally fires his gun backwards, killing another bear behind him he didn’t even know was there!
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