Neighbors  
Friday, January 14, 1921  
by Carl Sandburg 

Buster Keaton is on the map considerable these days. With him life is the making of one knockabout comedy after another. While Charlie Chaplin is taking it slow and easy and making sure that he is not going to have a public overfed with Chaplin stunts, the managers of Buster Keaton are taking him through many ropes.  

No sooner does he fall off one roof than he is called on to fall off another. The latest Buster Keaton comedy is titled Neighbors. As B. K. comedies go, this is the  
goods, a little better than some, not so good as others of the many in which he has appeared in recent months.  

There are two or three spots in Neighbors which were done in a big hurry. They go a little beyond what is raw and vulgar. They wouldn’t classify strictly as indecent, perhaps. But they would go better before an audience of men only.  

It will be recalled that this reviewer has spoken several times of photoplays where the sign was up “Adults Only,” and it has been noted that there was no necessity  
for the sign at all because the play dealt with rather inoffensive things that would not bother any ordinary rush hour straphanger.  

However, there is stuff pulled in the Buster Keaton comedy Neighbors which, it is certain, some theater managers would prefer to have cut out because in the operation of a clean neighborhood theater there are certain queries and objections the manager would rather not have coming to his ears.  
  
One can readily understand how in the high heat of the horseplay that accompanies a Buster Keaton comedy the actors and director might be swept along, thinking anything goes.  

The Three Ages  
Wednesday, November 14, 1923  
by Carl Sandburg 

In the history of the world there are three ages of importance, the stone age, the  
Roman age and the modern age. So we are told in the newest Buster Keaton release entitled The Three Ages, at McVicker’s Theater this week, in which the frozen-faced comedian is to be seen for the first time in a six-reel, regular one hour picture.  
  
In his six-reel pictures it seems that Buster Keaton is going to stick to the game rule and principle he has ever employed in the two and three-reel pictures, namely that he will continue to refuse to let his face reveal any semblance of a smile or mirth of any sort or ilk.  
  
Taking his cue from the more serious pictures, on which this is a burlesque, the  
opening reel has a book with a title shown, and the cover is opened as though  
we are all anxious to read the book, and then two or three pages of reading come along, as though we were going to settle down to a lesson in history and instruction with regard to how civilization rose out of the dark days of savagery.  
  
Well, when the picture starts we are in the stone age; stones are piled all around; stone mountains and boulders. A young woman attired in wildcat skins is combing her hair and flaunting her tresses to the breezes, though we observe that she has a permanent marcel wave that must have set her back a day’s pay at the Hotel Alexandria. Suitors appear for the hand of the maiden. The father tests them with a club. The one who goes under can’t have her. In this notable scene Wallace Beery and Buster Keaton are the competitors. Buster loses.  
  
In Rome again we see the same struggle for a woman wearing a permanent  
wave. And again in the modern age it is the same. Two men want the same woman. And the strongest gets her — but in the modern age strength is not the same kind of strength as in the stone and the Roman ages.  
  
The star players, as some people will figure it, are the mammoth and the dinosaur. 

Buster Keaton steps out this week at McVicker’s Theater in a film that runs seven reels in length and is the most pretentious offering he has made in the movies. We have often heard audiences laugh at the productions of this frozen-faced comedian, but in the case of this one the laughter is noisier and more booming.  
  
T. Roy Barnes, Snitz Edwards and Ruth Dwyer are seen in worthy support.  
  
The story is not so new, but they have certainly put new wrinkles, ruffles and curly queues on an old-timer. It is a case where two young businessmen are hard up for cash to meet outstanding obligations, they must have money or go to the wall. Along comes a lawyer reading them a will and one of them falls heir to $7 million — provided he shall marry before seven o’clock on the evening of his 27th birthday — that very day, in fact.  
  
Naturally he goes to the Mary Jones with whom he has been keeping company, but, being bashful, to whom he has never proposed. He tells her in his stumbling way he wants her to marry him that day because some girl must marry him or he will lose $7 million. She tells him to take his hat and go and she hopes she will never see him again.  
  
It is published in the papers that he must have a bride by seven o’clock or lose the $7 million. Thousands of prospective brides move to find him, traveling by any and all ways of travel. And, as expected, not until the final flickers of the final reel do we learn who it is that he actually does marry and whether she is the kind of bride he wished for.  
  
The direction of the picture was mostly by Buster Keaton himself. Several new sprightly stunts in motion picture narrative are introduced. It is a Metro-Goldwyn production.  

It seems rather silly to say that any screen comedy will leave unforgettable  
impressions on you — but that seems exactly what Buster Keaton’s Go West is  
likely to do at McVicker’s Theater this week. Although the theater at times is explosive with hearty guffaws, Go West may not be the funniest thing that sour-faced Buster has ever done, but it is by far the most enjoyable bit of humor this writer has seen from the Keaton fun factory. This comedian comes close to the Chaplinesque in his serious comedy. Buster is one of the few comedians of the screen at whom you can laugh without feeling a bit ridiculous yourself.  

Go West is a burlesque or parody or some kind of a takeoff on the melodrama of the “wide open spaces.” Buster hit upon a stroke of originality that comes near to robbing him of the picture’s starring honors. The “stroke” is Brown Eyes, a cow! Who would think of cow-starring with a bovine leading lady—except Buster?  
  
If you are burdened down with the pre-holiday shopping worries, if you haven’t yet  
got into the traditional Christmas spirit, amble over to McVicker’s and let Buster jolly you into the proper mood. And what Buster fails to do, Paul Ash’s gang, guided by George Givot, will accomplish for you with their lively musical program.  

The General  
Tuesday, January 18, 1927  
by Carl Sandburg 

If they’ll put Buster Keaton at the head of the armies next time there’s a war his  
maneuvers will bring that war to a pleasant, painless and prompt conclusion, because the belligerents will simply die laughing.  
  
At least that is the impression one gets viewing him in The General, a Joseph M.  
Schenck production, directed by Buster Keaton and Clyde Bruckman, the star’s  
first feature for United Artists, and now having its first Chicago showing at the  
Orpheum Theater.  

The General, we are told, is based upon historical fact and treats in a lighter vein an incident during the Civil War known as “the Andrews railroad raid,” which occurred in the spring of 1862 when a band of Union soldiers invaded Confederate territory and captured “The General,” one of the south’s crack railroad engines. Buster plays the part of Johnnie Gray, the young railroad engineer who piloted “The General,” and Marion Mack is Annabelle Lee, his sweetheart, upon whom Johnnie is calling when war is proclaimed. Annabelle’s father and brother hasten to enlist, but because his sweetheart expects it of him Johnnie gets there first in true Keatonesque style.  
  
Rejected because authorities consider him of greater value in the engine cab than in the ranks, Johnnie finds himself scorned by sweetheart and friends as a slacker until the northerners take it into their heads to steal “The General” and cut off the Confederate army from its source of supplies.  
  
Annabelle Lee happens to be in the baggage car when the raid takes place and is  
carried off into the enemy country — Johnnie in hot pursuit — neither of glory nor his sweetheart, but of his beloved engine. How this pursuit covers him with honor; jumps him into the rank of commissioned officer and throws him into the arms of his adored one must be seen to be appreciated.  
  
The play is chockfull of hilarity, pathos and thrills, such as when Johnnie chases  
himself with a loaded cannon; attempts to burn down a bridge and gets on the  
wrong side of the fire; shoots a cannon into the air and with fool’s luck hits the  
dam that floods the river and puts the enemy to rout. And if any young “modern” thinks short skirts and knickers an attribute to agility, let her behold the acrobatics of Marion Mack in hoopskirt and lace beruffled pantalets.  
  
Others in the cast are Glen Cavender as Capt. Anderson; Jim Farley, Gen.  
Thatcher; Frederick Vroom, a southern general; Charles Smith and Frank Barnes as Annabelle’s father and brother; Joe Keaton, Mike Donlin and Tom Nawn as three Union officers, plus thousands of extras.  
  
If you want a good laugh, don’t miss The General.