The Cameraman – a rarely seen Buster Keaton masterpiece

(US, 1928)
Directed by Edward Sedgwick
and Buster Keaton

Review by Barbara Popel

I’m a big fan of Buster Keaton. My favourite Keaton feature film has always been The General, the spectacular melodrama about a railway engineer, his beloved train “The General” and the Southern belle he’s trying to woo during the American Civil War. But a few weeks ago, I had to reconsider my ranking of Keaton’s films when I saw one I’d never even heard of – The Cameraman. It’s supplanted The General as my favourite Keaton feature film.

Keaton stars in this silent comedy about a photographer who takes up filming newsreels to impress Sally, a beautiful office worker played by Marceline Day, and to get hired as a newsreel photographer by her boss, played by Sidney Bracy. He buys an ancient, rickety movie camera. After several aborted but hilarious attempts to capture some interesting footage, Keaton finds himself in the middle of a major news story – a pitched battle between rival Chinese Tongs, complete with knives, pistols and Gatling guns! After further mishaps and misunderstandings, Keaton achieves the fulsome praise lavished on the other “daredevil(s) who (defy) death to give us pictures of the world’s happenings.”

Let me whet your appetite with one of Keaton’s first forays as a newsreel cameraman. He’s supposed to film interesting events. What about a Yankees’ baseball game? He heads to Yankee Stadium for a game that afternoon but finds out the Yankees are actually playing in St. Louis! Undeterred, Buster mimes playing baseball – three minutes of the most sublime miming I’ve ever seen.

On Sunday, Keaton takes out Sally, the girl he is besotted with, on a date. They go to a public swimming pool where there’s another brilliant scene. Keaton goes into a tiny closet of a change room, but a large man barges in and insists on using the same room. The two of them proceed to get undressed, tangling up in each other’s clothes, arms and legs. Most of this is done in one amazing two-and-a-half minute take. I’ve never seen anything like it.

When Keaton emerges in a gargantuan swimsuit (he seems to have put on the other guy’s suit), what happens next in the pool is hilarious. It definitely predates the censorious Hays Code.

One of the things that impressed me about The Cameraman was how modern it is. If you swapped the newsreel cameras for handheld video cameras and iPhones and updated the clothes, the entire story could be set in 2022. Well, except for one of the minor but essential characters – a very clever organ grinder’s monkey. I’m not sure how you’d update this little fellow to 2022 – not too many organ grinders these days! However, the storyline and most of the performances are what you’d expect from today’s best Hollywood actors.

Oh, one other exception – no one has ever equalled Buster Keaton’s daring stunts and graceful physical humour.

Running time: 76 min
Rated: PG
Available: Apple TV, Google Play, YouTube,
the Criterion Collection

Barb Popel has lived in the Glebe since 1991. At university in the early 1970s, she was introduced to the joys of film. She’s been an avid filmgoer ever since.