More Keaton on Blu-ray

With this post I’m inaugurating something new in Bayflicks: Blu-ray reviews of classic films.

Sherlock Jr. and The Three Ages

Kino releases its third Buster Keaton Blu-ray title on November 16, and while it’s nowhere near as exciting as The General (or, I assume their Steamboat Bill Jr. disc, which I haven’t seen), it’s a worthy addition.

This double feature disc includes two early Keaton features—his first, Three Ages, and his third, Sherlock, Jr. That one is widely regarded as his first feature-length masterpiece, but I disagree. I’m very fond of Sherlock Jr., but I prefer the movie he made between these two: Our Hospitality.

Since the disc’s opening menu asks you to pick a feature, I’ll take them one at a time.

Sherlock Jr.

Here’s what I say about Keaton’s shortest feature when it plays theatrically in the Bay Area (as it does fairly often):

B+ There’s nothing new about special effects. Buster Keaton used them extensively, in part to comment on the nature of film itself, in this story of a projectionist who dreams he’s a great detective.The sequence where he enters the movie screen and finds the scenes changing around him would be impressive if it were made today; for 1924, when the effects had to be done in the camera, it’s mind-boggling. Since it’s Keaton, Sherlock Jr. is also filled with impressive stunts and very funny gags. This is an extremely short “feature,” running only about 45 minutes (depending on the projection speed).

Kino’s hi-definition transfer of Sherlock Jr. isn’t up to what they did on The General, but that’s understandable. The existing film elements for Sherlock Jr. run from excellent to acceptable, and the video can’t do better than the film it’s made from. Much of it glows with detail, and none of it stinks.

Kino included two excellent scores—by the Club Foot Orchestra (they’re playing it live at the Castro this Sunday) and the Mont Alto Orchestra. The Club Foot score has their usual surreal style, which fits the dream-like movie. Purists may object to the use of electric guitar and chase music that makes me think of a 1960s spy movie, but I don’t.

The Mont Alto score has a fun, flippant quality that fits the movie in a very different way. Kino includes two mixes of this score: the original two-rack stereo and a 5.1 remix that, as I write this, Mont Alto leader Rodney Sauer has yet to hear. The 5.1 version gives the music a bigger, more dramatic sound.

Kino also included a lousy score. Decades ago, Jay Ward of Bullwinkle fame put together a truly atrocious Sherlock Jr. soundtrack consisting of old, scratchy Dixieland jazz recordings. There’s little attempt to match the onscreen action with the music. This one only works as a reminder of how bad silent film presentation was in the mid-twentieth century.

The Club Foot and Jay Ward scores are two-track Dolby Digital—some sound quality is lost in the compression. Not so with the Mont Alto scores. The original two-track version is uncompressed PCM, while the 5.1 remix uses DTS-HD Master Audio lossless compression.

On a fifth soundtrack, film historian David Kalat provides commentary. He spends a little too much time on Roscoe (Fatty) Arbuckle, who may or may not have directed most of the movie, but it’s an interesting track overall. The two other extras: a Tour of Filming Locations by John Bengston (author of Silent Echos), and and a documentary of the making of Sherlock Jr.

One thing I learned from those extras: One of my favorite moments in Sherlock Jr. was not the amazing, death-defying stunt I always thought it was. It was an amazing special effect. You’ll have to get the disc to find out which.

Three Ages

Keaton’s first feature is probably his weakest (although College comes close). It tells the same story three times—in caveman days, imperial Rome, and modern times—intercutting between them. At least the jokes are different. It’s generally believed that Keaton did this so that, the features flopped , he could recut and release the footage as three two-reelers.

In fact, Kino has done just that. One of the included extras lets you view each section separately.

Looking at the feature as a whole, it’s a thin story told thrice, with a lot of forced anachronistic humor, and only occasional flashes of Keaton genius. The best moments, including one of Keaton’s most spectacular falls, are all in the modern version.

The source material on Three Ages is so bad that the advantages of Blu-ray seldom come through—unless you want a detailed study of nitrate decomposition. You could never tell by watching the movie just how beautiful both Blu-ray and silent films can be.

Once again, Kino offers three musical scores, this time by Robert Israel, Lee Erwin (on Organ), and an unknown person in Piano. How Kino got the rights to a score without knowing who recorded it is beyond me.

Once again, they’ve included a Tour of Filming Locations short by John Bengston (these are always worth watching). There’s also an excerpt from D.W. Griffith’s 1912 one-reeler "Man’s Genesis."

But then, t’s probably best to think of Three Ages as an extra on the Sherlock Jr. disc. It’s the shorter movie, but it’s the better one.