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The Cameraman

Director: Edward Sedgwick and Buster Keaton
Year: 1928
Run-time: 1 hr 7 min
Source: Paid Youtube

Most of the well-known Buster Keaton bits revolve around a set-piece - a train (The General), a build-it-yourself house (One Week), a movie projector (Sherlock, Jr.) - so The Camerman is somewhat unique for giving us a chance to see what a great physical comedian Keaton could be on his own.  And there are some absolutely hilarious moments that rival anything else in his career, most particularly the dressing room scene.

The plot revolves around Keaton's bumbling attempts to break into the early newsreel industry with a shoddy second-hand camera.  The camera's ability to either deceive or reveal is hinted at, but the message here isn't as poignant as in Sherlock, Jr.  The best scenes occur when Keaton tries to woo a clerk at the newsroom.  By this point, Keaton had mastered the "innocent idiot" character completely, and we alternately laugh at and root for him.  Any attempts to play this type of character in the sound age just seem less effective.
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