Full Frontal Genius

Buster Keaton has been quoted as saying, ‘You can’t be a genius in slap shoes.’ I disagree. You can be a genius in far worse.

I am a Keaton fan from so far back I own an 8mm copy of The General. This is my very brief take on the Free and Easy number in… Free and Easy (the 1930 MGM musical starring Buster Keaton and Anita Page). The number is both cute and endearing in one sense, quite horrible in another. And it’s grown on me, to the extent that I keep watching it.

I have not yet seen the film in its entirety, but eventually I must, if only to answer the Eternal Fan Question: did MGM harbor a seething hatred for all humanity, or merely for Buster Keaton?

*And it will be worthwhile to view, with an eye toward comparison to other musicals of that general era, such as the Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers extravaganzas.*

However, I’m afraid that if I do see the whole movie, I will either plunge into such a deep depression that watching the Pawnbroker will seem like a comedy. Or worse, I will end up LIKING it. Then I’d be cast into fandom’s Outer Darkness.

And I do like the number. That’s why I watch it over and over. Because the man does full frontal splits! Which hurts just to watch.

And he sings live on-camera, which is how they did it back then.

And, most importantly—-hamper Keaton though they may with a dopey character, humiliate him, cram him into a hideous costume, trap him on a stage festooned with visual clutter, surround him with chunky chorines (one of whom ‘dances’ by lifting her leg again and again, the way a dog addresses a fire hydrant, though luckily for Keaton, he has fallen into a box before it occurs.)

Do all this to him, and Buster Keaton can still out-sing, out-dance, and out-perform them all.

Full frontal genius.