What a delightfully wacky world our Buster inhabited. This one, his first MGM feature, the beginning of the end one might safely say, is about a hapless would-be newsreel photographer trying to get a foothold within MGM, mostly in order to win the sweet girl in the front office. Lost of footage in 'Cameraman' is rather less than vintage Keaton, some jokes aren't as fresh as one would wish, but hey, listen, this is Keaton, the great stoneface. A Deity. Because other footage is simply brilliant. The pathetic pictures of Buster sitting in his little room from the crack of dawn in all his Sunday best, waiting for the girl to maybe ring. When it does ring he has to rush four stories down to get it! Or the scene where he has to share his dressingroom with another gent and their clothes and limbs get tangled up with each other. Or, most spectacularly, the (location?) scenes from the gangwar in Chinatown, dynamic, violent, imaginative. See it, love it - just just expect another 'General' or 'Sherlock' or 'Scarecrow' or 'Steamboat Bill' or 'Battling Butler'.
Review of The Cameraman
