If you enjoy Buster Keaton's work you'll be glad to hear that most of it is public domain. This means you can download full movies for free. Here is a list of buster keaton films you can watch and download, all are complete.
- Buster Keaton shorts 1 contains The Blacksmith, The boat, The paleface and Daydreams.
- Buster Keaton shorts 2 contains The Playhouse, The Balloonistic, My Wifes Relations and The Electric House.
- Convict 13 (1920): article - download - watch it.
- Cops (1922): article - download - watch it.
- Daydreams (1922): download - watch it.
- Li'l Abner (1940): download or here - watch it.
- My Wife's Relations (1922): download - watch it.
- Neighbors (1920): article - download - watch it.
- One Week (1920): article - download - watch it.
- Parlor, Bedroom and Bath (1931) - download - watch it.
- Sherlock Jr. (1924): article - download - watch it.
- Speak Easily (1932): download or here - watch it.
- Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928): article - download or here - watch it.
- The Balloonatic (1923): download - watch it.
- The Blacksmith (1922): download or here - watch it.
- The Boat (1921): download - watch it.
- The Butcher Boy (1917): article - download - watch it .
- The Electric House (1922): download - watch it.
- The Frozen North (1922): download - watch it.
- The General (1927): article - download - watch it or download - watch it (two different versions).
- The Goat (1921): download - watch it.
- The Love Nest (1923): article - download - watch it.
- The Paleface (1922): article - download or here - watch it.
- The Play House (1921): article - download - watch it.
- The Scarecrow (1920): article - download - watch it.
Biography
Film comic actor, screenwriter, and producer, born in Piqua, Kansas, USA. The son of medicine show performers, he joined their acrobatic comedy act ‘The Three Keatons’ at age three, and moved on to vaudeville when he was six and already an accomplished acrobat. He entered films with The Butcher Boy (1917), and after brief service in World War 1 he made a series of short films, along with his first feature, The Saphead (1920). By 1923 he was exercising complete artistic control over his films and he had established his persona as a deadpan and agile Everyman undaunted by the most extreme situations. Some of his productions were almost surreal, such as Sherlock, Jr (1924), in which he played a film projectionist who became involved in the action on the screen. Other masterworks include The Boat (1921), Our Hospitality (1923), The Navigator (1924), and The General (1927). After he signed with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc (1928) he lost some control over his films, and not only did his marriage to Natalie Talmadge break up, but he was also troubled by alcoholism and mental illness. He hung on at the margins of the Hollywood film world, but it was his appearances at the circus in Paris in 1947 and then in Chaplin's Limelight (1952) that led to the reappreciation of his comic artistry. During the 1950s, many of his silent masterpieces were re-released. His last decade saw him all but overwhelmed by the constant demands on his time and tributes to his genius.
Joseph Frank Keaton, Jr. (October 4, 1895 – February 1, 1966), better known by his stage name Buster Keaton, was a popular and influential American silent film comic actor and filmmaker. His trademark was physical comedy with a stoic, deadpan expression on his face, earning him the nickname "The Great Stone Face" (referencing the Hawthorne story about the Old Man of the Mountain).
His activity as a performer and director is widely regarded to be among the most innovative and important work in the history of cinema. He was recognized as the 7th greatest director of all time by Entertainment Weekly.
A 2002 world-wide poll by Sight and Sound ranked Keaton's The General as the 15th best film of all time. Three other Keaton films received votes in the survey: Our Hospitality, Sherlock, Jr., and The Navigator.
Early life in vaudeville
Keaton was born into the world of vaudeville. His father was Joseph Hallie Keaton, a native of Vigo County, Indiana, known in the show business world as Joe Keaton. Joe Keaton owned a traveling show with Harry Houdini called the Mohawk Indian Medicine Company, which performed on stage and sold patent medicine on the side. Buster Keaton was born in Piqua, Kansas, the small town where his mother, Myra Edith Cutler, happened to go into labor.
Popular legend has it that one day before a vaudeville performance, a very young Keaton was walking down a flight of stairs, but tripped and fell down the entire flight and broke his nose. Keaton got right back up, and upon seeing this the famous magician Harry Houdini, who was in the performance, said to Keaton's mother that he was quite the little buster. It is more likely, however, that the nickname was given by a fellow vaudvillian, whose name has been lost to history. Although Houdini did tour with the Keatons, he did not join up with them until Keaton was well beyond infancy. Regardless of the source, however, the name 'Buster' was acquired in his youth, and used ever since.
At the age of three, he began performing with his parents in The Three Keatons; the storyline of the act concerned how to raise a small child. Myra played the saxophone to one side while Joe and Buster performed on center stage. Buster would goad Joe by disobeying him, and Joe would respond by throwing Buster against the scenery, into the orchestra pit, or even into the audience. A suitcase handle was even sewn into Buster's clothing to aid with the constant tossing. The act evolved as Buster learned to take trick falls safely. He was rarely injured or bruised on stage. Nevertheless, this knockabout style of comedy led to accusations of child abuse. Decades later, Keaton said that he was never abused by his father and that the falls and physical comedy were a matter of proper technical execution. In fact, Buster would have so much fun, he would begin laughing as his father threw him across the stage. This drew fewer laughs from the audience, so Buster adopted his famous dead-pan expression whenever he was working.
The act ran up against laws banning child performers in vaudeville. When one official saw Buster in full costume and make-up, he asked a stage-hand how old that performer was. The stage-hand shrugged and pointed to Buster's mother, saying "I don't know, ask his wife!" Despite tangles with the law and a disastrous tour of English music halls, Buster was a rising star in the theater, so much so that even when Myra and Joe tried to introduce Buster's siblings into the act, Buster remained the central attraction.
By the time Buster was 21, Joe's alcoholism threatened the reputation of the family act, so Buster and Myra left Joe in Los Angeles. Myra returned to their summer home in Muskegon, Michigan while Buster travelled to New York, where his performing career moved from vaudeville to film.
Silent film era
In February 1917, Keaton met Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle at the Talmadge Studios in New York City, where Arbuckle was under contract to Joseph M. Schenck. Joe Keaton Sr. disapproved of the moving pictures, thinking them to be little more than a fad. Buster was also unsure of the medium. During his first meeting with Arbuckle, he asked to borrow one of the cameras to get a feel for how it worked. Buster promptly took the camera back to his hotel room and disassembled it. With this rough understanding of the mechanics of the moving pictures, Buster returned the next day, dissected camera in hand, asking for work. He was hired as a co-star and gag-man, making his first appearance in The Butcher Boy. Keaton later claimed that he was soon Arbuckle's second director and his entire gag department. Keaton and Arbuckle became close friends, a bond that would never break, even after Arbuckle was embroiled in the scandal that cost him his career and his personal life.
After Keaton's successful work with Arbuckle, Schenck gave him his own production unit, Buster Keaton Studios. He made a series of two-reel comedies, including One Week (1920), Cops (1922), The Electric House (1922), and The Playhouse (1921). Based on the success of these shorts, Keaton moved to full-length features.
His most enduring feature-length films include Our Hospitality (1923), The Navigator (1924), Sherlock Jr. (1924), The Cameraman (1928), Steamboat Bill Jr. (1928), and The General (1927). This last film, set during the American Civil War, is considered his masterpiece, combining physical comedy with Keaton's love for trains. Unfortunately, many of his most enduring films performed poorly at the box office due to their sophistication—audiences had a difficult time seeing Buster as a cinematic artist of considerable ambition.
However, his talents were always recognized by his peers. Years later, rival director Leo McCarey talked about the freewheeling days of making slapstick comedies: "All of us tried to steal each other's gagmen. But we had no luck with Keaton, because he thought up his best gags himself and we couldn't steal him!"
In addition, the technical side of filmmaking fascinated him and he was forward thinking enough to want to direct sound films when they began to become technically practical and popular. The fact that he had a good voice and years of stage experience promised an easier adjustment than Chaplin's silent Tramp character, who could not survive sound. Sadly, Keaton's loss of independence as a filmmaker coincided with the coming of sound films and mounting personal problems, and his full potential in the early sound era was never realized.
Marriages
In 1921, he married Natalie Talmadge, sister-in-law of his boss, Joseph Schenck, and sister of actresses Norma Talmadge and Constance Talmadge. The couple had two sons, James and Robert, during the first three years of the marriage, but after the birth of Robert, the relationship began to suffer.
According to Keaton in his autobiography, Natalie turned him out of their bedroom and sent detectives to follow him to see who he was dating behind her back. She also spent enormous sums of money. During the 1920s, as per his autobiography, he dated actress Kathleen Key, and upon ending the affair, Key flew into a rage tearing up his dressing room. In 1932, Natalie bitterly divorced Keaton, taking his entire fortune and refusing to allow any contact between Keaton and his sons, whose last name she had changed to Talmadge. Keaton was reunited with them about a decade later when the older son turned eighteen. The traumatic failure of his marriage, along with the loss of his independence as a filmmaker, led Keaton into a period of deep alcoholism.
In 1933, Buster married Mae Scriven - his nurse, during an alcoholic binge that he claimed to remember nothing about afterwards (Keaton himself later called that period an "alcoholic blackout"). Scriven herself would later claim that she didn't even know Keaton's real first name until after the marriage. When they divorced in 1936, she took half of everything they owned.
In 1940, Buster married Eleanor Norris, who was 23 years his junior. She saved his life and helped to salvage his career. All of their friends advised them against marrying, but the marriage lasted until his death. Between 1947 and 1954, Buster and Eleanor appeared regularly in the Cirque Medrano in Paris, in a highly-regarded doubles act. Eleanor died in 1998.
Sound era and television
Keaton signed with MGM in 1928, a business decision that Keaton would later call the worst of his life. He realized too late that the studio system MGM represented would prove to be a far more restrictive environment than that in which he had previously worked, severely limiting his prior creative independence. From now on he would (for the first time) be forced to use a stunt double during some of his more dangerous scenes, as MGM wanted badly to protect its investment. He also stopped directing, but continued to perform and made some of his most financially successful films for the studio. MGM tried teaming the laconic Keaton with the rambunctious Jimmy Durante in a series of movies including The Passionate Plumber, Speak Easily, and What! No Beer?' Although the two comedians never quite meshed as a unit, the films proved popular.
Keaton was so depleted during the filming of What! No Beer? that the studio released him, despite the film being a resounding hit. In 1934 Keaton accepted an offer to make an independent film in Paris, Le Roi des Champs-Elysses.
Upon his return to Hollywood, he made a screen comeback in a series of 16 two-reel comedies for Educational Pictures. Most of these are simple visual comedies, with many of the gags supplied by Keaton himself. The high point in the Educational series is Grand Slam Opera, featuring Buster in his own screenplay as an amateur-hour contestant. When the series lapsed in 1937, Keaton returned to MGM as a gag writer, particularly for the Marx Brothers—including At the Circus (1939), and Go West (1940); and for Red Skelton.
In 1939 Columbia Pictures hired Buster Keaton for a series of two-reel slapstick comedies. The director was usually Jules White, whose heavy-handed approach made most of these films resemble White's Three Stooges comedies. The best of the 10 Columbias is probably the first one, Pest from the West, directed by Del Lord, but the entire Columbia series boasts many charming Keaton touches, and the films were immensely popular with moviegoers.
During the 1940s Keaton played character roles in both "A" and "B" features. Critics rediscovered Keaton in 1949 and producers now hired him for bigger pictures. He guest-starred in such films as Sunset Boulevard (1950), It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966), and appeared in Charles Chaplin's Limelight (1952), recalling the vaudeville of The Playhouse. 'Limelight' was the only time in which the two giants of silent comedy would appear together on film.
Keaton had a successful series on Los Angeles television, The Buster Keaton Show (1950). An attempt to recreate the first series on film as Life With Buster Keaton (1951), which allowed it to be broadcast to the east coast, was less well received. However, Keaton said he cancelled the programs himself because he was unable to create enough fresh material to produce a new show each week.
One of Keaton's most memorable television appearances was on Ed Wynn's variety show. At the age of 55, he successfully recreated one of the stunts of his youth, in which he propped one foot onto a table, then swung the second foot up next to it, and held the awkward position in midair for a moment before crashing to the stage floor. I've Got a Secret host Garry Moore recalled, "I asked (Keaton) how he did all those falls, and he said, 'I'll show you'. He opened his jacket and he was all bruised. So that's how he did it - it hurt - but you had to care enough not to care." At the age of 70, Keaton suggested a piece of physical comedy for his appearance in the 1965 movie Sergeant Deadhead, in which he ran past the end of a firehose into a six-foot-high flip and crash. When director Norman Taurog balked, expressing concerns for Keaton's health, Keaton said, "I won't hurt myself, Norm, I've done it for years!".
Keaton's classic silent films saw a revival in the 1950s and 1960s. In 1961 he starred in The Twilight Zone episode Once Upon a Time, which had both silent and sound scenes. Keaton also found steady work as an actor in TV commercials, including a popular series of silent ads for Simon Pure Beer in which he revisited some of his favorite sight gags from his silent film days.
Keaton starred in a short film called The Railrodder (1965) for the National Film Board of Canada. Wearing his traditional porkpie hat, he travelled from one end of Canada to the other on a motorized "hand-car", performing gags similar to those in films he made 50 years before. The film is also notable for being Keaton's last silent screen performance. The Railrodder was made in tandem with a documentary about Keaton's life, cinema style and the creation of The Railrodder called Buster Keaton Rides Again - also made for the National Film Board. He played the central role in Samuel Beckett's Film (1965), directed by Alan Schneider. Keaton's last film appearance was in the Roman musical farce A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966).
Death
Keaton lived to see the rediscovery of his great silent films in his later years, and his recognition as one of the great geniuses of cinema. He died of lung cancer on 1 February 1966, at the age of 70.
He was not related to actors Michael Keaton or Diane Keaton. Both Michael and Diane had chosen "Keaton" as their professional surname because their real names were already being used by other actors in the industry.
Legacy
Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd are remembered as the great comic innovators of the silent era. Keaton enjoyed Lloyd's films highly and often praised Chaplin for his genius.
Keaton has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame: 6619 Hollywood Boulevard (for motion pictures); and 6321 Hollywood Boulevard (for television). In 1994, his image appeared on a United States postage stamp designed by caricaturist Al Hirschfeld.
During his days as a writer, Dick Cavett wrote a joke for Johnny Carson, a fake caption to a newspaper photo of Aristotle Onassis looking at the home of Buster Keaton, which he was considering purchasing. Cavett wrote: "Aristotle Contemplating the Home of Buster"
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