A backwoods family of moonshiners (the Keaton family and Dewey
Robinson) is hard hit by the end of prohibition - so they have to look for
another source of income and find it in professional wrestling, which
seems like a good idea since their eldest Elmer (Dewey Robinson) is a hulk
of a man. Wrestling night: To see to it that her baby's not hurt,
Elmer's mum (Myra Keaton) has seen to it that Jim (Buster Keaton) will be
the referee in Elmer's first fight - and during the fight, Jim manages to
get more thrown around, kicked and beaten than the two wrestlers togehter,
but finally Elmer manages to throw his opponent (Bull Montana) out of the
ring - through the floor. But when after that, his mum manages to knock
Elmer out, Jim declares her the winner. Buster Keaton's shorts
for Educational Films can't be compared to his silent masterpieces
like The General, that's for
sure, they are nothing more than quick vignettes made with way less care
(and a ,uch tinier budget) than even Keaton's silent shorts, and it does
show ... but it also shows that Keaton hasn't forgotten all he's ever
learned about physical comedy, and the wrestling scene in which he as
referee manages to get hurt much nmore than the actual wrestlers is
actually pretty funny and could have been hilarious had Keaton himself
been in charge of direction, a bigger budget and the necessary time to
properly film it. But as I said, even as it is, the scene is rather funny,
and as a slapstick comedian, his timing is still top notch.
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