Grand Slam Opera (1936) Online

By the time this film was made just about everyone had given up on Buster Keaton. He'd been divorced by his wife, fired by MGM, and reduced to making obscure features in Europe and cheap two-reel shorts in Hollywood, the latter at a studio known as a haven of sorts for has-beens: Earle Hammons' Educational Pictures. As its name suggests, Educational had initially produced instructional films for schools, then switched to comedies without a change of name. During the 1920s a lot of quality work came out of this studio, but by the mid-1930s the place had become shabby and most of its product was bottom-of-the-barrel stuff, making its slogan ("The Spice of the Program") a sadly ironic joke. Buster Keaton, now an alcoholic ex-MGM star with a wobbly private life, became the biggest name on the lot.

Keaton fans know that his output of shorts for Educational was erratic: several of the films are depressingly poor, but a few of them feature a little of the old spark and can be put in the category of "not half bad." Grand Slam Opera, on the other hand, is something of a miracle, a genuinely enjoyable comedy that has the feel of Buster's best work from his heyday. It's as if the man suddenly pulled himself together and decided to show the world what he was still capable of accomplishing.

From the opening moment we know we're in for something special: Buster's character, a small-town dreamer named Elmer Butts, is hoisted by a crowd of well-wishers onto a train for New York and treated to a serenade of farewell, "So Long Elmer," a parody of a George M. Cohan song. The song kicks things off on a breezy, funny note, and when Buster joins in on the chorus it marks a rare occasion that his bullfrog voice was utilized to full comic effect in talkies. Then Elmer is off to the big city to try his luck on Colonel Crow's radio talent show, where he doggedly persists in performing a silent juggling act that makes no sense to radio listeners. (Colonel Crow's program represents a satirical jab at an actual radio show of the day, Major Bowes' Amateur Hour). Elmer meets a girl, she rejects him, and then when he discovers that her apartment is directly beneath his own we're presented with another great parody, this time poking fun at the Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers "meet cute" sequence in Top Hat. Buster's dance is one of the film's highlights, but for my money the best bit comes when he's waiting in the radio station's Green Room while a band called the Hoboken Canal Boat Boys plays a medley of various national folk tunes. Just for the sheer challenge of the thing, Elmer dances madly to each number, switching from Highland fling to Spanish tango, etc., as the music dictates. The scene is hilarious, exhilarating and impressive, and demonstrated that 40 year-old Buster still had plenty of energy and wasn't ready to be put out to pasture just yet.

It's interesting to note that the central premise of Buster's story provides a kind of hidden message concerning the state of his career at this time. The joke is that Elmer Butts refuses to adapt his act to the demands of an audio medium, radio, and insists on performing a silent act. But the wish-fulfillment upshot of it all is that Elmer's comic talent is recognized anyhow, and he eventually wins the contest and the girl. In reality, Buster Keaton still had plenty of hard knocks to come in his life and career, but for a brief moment, if only in this surprising and delightful film, he was on top again.

Down on his luck, out of favour, no longer the huge star he used to be, and broke, Buster Keaton signed to do a series of shorts with Educational pictures. Most are merely amusing. But Grand Slam Opera is a flash of comedic brilliance that reminded us just who we were watching: one of the greatest movie comedians and directors who ever lived.

Keaton pulls off the funniest parody of Fred Astaire ever in a sequence where he mimics the famous scene from Top Hat, dancing in his dingy room, up on the furniture and down again, disturbing the lady trying to sleep below. He pokes fun at Sinatra's Hoboken Four, and Major Bowes' Hour. Deadpan, he dances through an international medley of music, improvising the appropriate dance as the music changes. He lampoons pretentious singers, annoying band leaders, and introduces a pick-up line that you will never forget. He sings, he dances, and he falls in ways that only he can. Best of all, he gets the girl. If you love Keaton, you'll love this short.

This 1936 short from Educational Pictures is often held up as an example that Buster Keaton, now being given a chance to write his own material again, still had it in the sound era. Well it should be, not just because just about every joke and sequence lands dead-on and hilariously, but because the whole two-reeler is a kind of comic riff on sound itself.

The wonderful "So Long Elmer" song parody at the start, the sequence of Elmer keeping the girl downstairs (who is involved in a perfectly-developed running-gag) awake with his practicing, his impromptu dance to the medley, his wonderfully non-radio-appropriate novelty acts, and his disruption of the orchestra, all depend on and relate to sound in order to work. It's appropriate that the first talkie short that Keaton really had control over should be a kind of meditation in comedy form on sound itself, not to mention set around a radio station (and the satire of Major Bowes is dead-on without being too much).

Buster himself is great. He style-changing dance is truly impressive and athletic as well as being funny, and one-hundred per-cent physical and non-verbal while still one-hundred per-cent dependent on the sound medium to work. Keaton said in interviews that most early talkies bothered him because there was unnecessary talking -- characters should speak to each other when they have something to say. He puts that principle into effect here and appropriately says nothing, but still carries the scene off completely, while alone in his room, but delivers his dialogue with panache as well. I got a laugh from his delivery alone when he assures the announcer "I made sure of that!" after being asked if his prop whiskey bottle was empty. His problem was never that he couldn't deliver dialogue well. Of course, there are visual gags too, such as when Diana Lewis disappears behind the bus, that bear Keaton's hallmark completely.

"Grand Slam Opera" is really satisfyingly funny all the way through, and it has that unmistakable and unique eccentricity of spirit found in many of Keaton's silent's. That's what really makes his work special, and here it is translated into a sound-dependent style of film-making in a way that really works, over and over again.

After the depressing late MGM films that Keaton did (several in tandem with up-and-coming Jimmy Durante), after the divorce from Nathalie Talmadge, and a messy remarriage, and alcoholic binges, and an indifferent and vicious Louis B. Mayer, Buster hit probably the bottom of his career. But all things are relative. Keaton never was totally unemployed (like his fellow Silent Film star John Gilbert), because he had other talents: as writer, gag men, and bit player. He also had name recognition, due to the strength of his performances in his silent masterpieces. So, despite a plethora of bad films he still could show what he was capable of.

Working for "Educational Films", Keaton made "Grand Slam Opera" in 1936. I see it as a pretty funny film - one of an increasing number of shorts and small features that would keep him going until the 1950s brought his "rediscovery" by the public.

It starts off with a spoof of a scene which many of you have seen done correctly in a film biography. If you recall the film YANKEE DOODLE DANDY, they have a scene from the George M. Cohan musical, Forty-Five Minutes From Broadway, where Fay Templeton (Irene Manning) is escorted by the beaus of her hometown to the train to New York City. They sing the tune, "So Long Mary". Keaton purchased the rights to use the music with some altered lyrics for his film persona Elmer Butts from Cohan. Instead of boy friends or girl friends, or friends, Elmer (Buster) is accompanied by a lynch mob led by Bud Jamison. And they tell him how glad they are to see him leave, and not to come back.

Elmer goes to New York City hoping to make his fame and fortune in entertainment. Spoofing Major Edward Bowes "Amateur Hour", Elmer goes to appear on "Colonel Crow's" show on radio. Initially though the show ends before he can do anything. Soon he begins having a series of accidental meetings with another contestant. The young lady keeps telling him off, and he keeps asking her out to dinner.

Elmer tries to practice juggling and acrobatics in his boarding house room. But the staff of the house come in and knock down sticks he is balancing, or he breaks his bed. He sees a picture of Fred Astaire, and tries to dance like that gentleman. It has been pointed out that the sequence here imitates Astaire's dancing on sand to put Ginger Rogers to sleep in TOP HAT the previous year, and that (ironically enough) Keaton even starts dancing around the room almost (if not quite as artistically) as Astaire would in ROYAL WEDDING in 1951.

Elmer returns to the radio program, and is forced to wait in a waiting room, where he does a series of dances to the folk music (Scot, Irish, Russian, among others) he hears from inside. Finally he returns and gets his chance, only to find that he is on an audio entertainment system and everything he does requires sight to appreciate. He tries to overcome this by describing the tricks and then performing them. Soon, however, he is at loggerheads with the orchestra conductor and Colonel Crow. He is thrown out.

In disgrace, we see Elmer walking and hoboing across American, only to hear on radio that he is sought by the authorities: he won the first prize. We see him rapidly recross the country, get the prize (and also upset the conductor again) and finally get a chance to take out the girl.

While not up to the standards of his work in the 1920s (compare this with a short like ONE WEEK or COPS) Keaton is quite inventive throughout the entire film. It was still possible, despite the extensive problems he was facing in his personal life, for Buster to show his creativity at this low point.

After spending years in the MGM factory and nearly losing his mind, Keaton pulled himself together in 1935. At that time he worked for Educational, a low budget company that had seen much better days. The 16 films Keaton did for Educational between 1934-37 are nevertheless viewed today which respect. Despite meager budgets and often not very original scripts they still show that here Keaton was given some creative control (compare to the most films he later did for Columbia) and was still able to create great gags. But only in a few films he could work with an own script. GRAND SLAM OPERA was one of the few. It is a Keaton Film from start to finish, with a clever story, fast pace and some good support by Harold Goodwin and especially John Ince (good supporting actors are quite rare in low budget comedies). The "Hotel room dancing" and the juggle performance in front of a micro are classic scenes. Not surprisingly GRAND SLAM OPERA is now regarded as (almost) equal to the quality of his silent films. Others, like PEST FROM THE WEST were very funny, but GRAND SLAM OPERA provided the special "Keaton-Touch" that was nearly destroyed by MGM.

Keaton's work at Educational is quite uneven, the early ones from 1934 and 1935 seem like exercises, lots of simple slapstick and falls. It is almost as if he was getting back into shape after 4 years of bad, all talk/little physical comedy work at MGM. He needed this pure slapstick to work his way back into comic shape. His worked steadily improved and I think much of his 1936 Educational work comes pretty close to his amazing early silent shorts and are among the funniest talking shorts ever made (including Laurel and Hardy shorts). It is a pity he was not given a chance at features again after these. He could probably had been a top star again.

In this movie there are seven or eight good gag sequences. The best, I thought, was the hilarious spoof of Fred Astaire's "Top Hat." One should not forget the Keaton's first feature, "Three Ages," was a great satire on Griffith's "Intolerance." Here his clumsy but energetic dancing on all the furniture around the room is a spoof as sharp and funny as anything that was ever on Saturday Night Live.

Some great comedians, like Jack Benny and Bob Hope remained consistently funny for 30 years. However most only had five to ten great years, like Lucille Ball, Chevy Chase and Adam Sandler and then ended up repeating themselves with less and less success. From 1918 to 1928, there was nobody funnier than Keaton. The next 37 years, he was a good comedian, but never matched 1918-1928. Of all those years, 1936 was probably the best year where he came the closest to matching those magic years.

O.K., so he ain't no Fred Alstare, but he's trying. No, I did not misspell the name of the most famous dancer of the 1930's dancer, but if you watch this short, you'll know exactly what I am talking about. But since he can't sing, Buster Keaton longs to be the next best thing, an accomplished dancer. With the help of an audition going on, he gets to try out his attempts to trip the light fantastic, annoying a pretty waitress neighbor in his innocent efforts. The short includes a radio version of "The Gong Show", where really bad acts are heard, but fortunately not seen by the radio audience. The visuals are really amusing, as he attempts a juggling act as well. One thing you can say for Buster's Educational shorts character, Elmer, is that he really tried everything. A duel with an orchestra leader is pretty funny too.

Wow, did this Buster Keaton short for Educational Pictures start off strangely. It had Buster singing--yes, singing! It appeared as if it would be a musical comedy, though after his train left, the singing stopped and it became more of a typical 1930 Keaton comedy. Once in the city, Keaton does what is also typical of one of his 1930s films--he meets a girl. What follows is a nice parody of the Fred Astaire movie "Top Hat"--complete with a scene involving sand and dancing that awakens the lady--just like Astaire did with Ginger Rogers in this other film.

So why is Buster working on tap dancing as well as juggling? Well, he hopes to win a talent contest and become a performer. While a lot of this isn't all that funny, it is nice to see how versatile and physical Keaton still was at this point in his career. In particular, the Russian dance was pretty impressive. But as for him juggling and dancing, the show is a RADIO show! Of course the audience can't see any of this and he makes a mess of things...but it is pretty funny.

Not surprisingly he is a washout and returns home to Arizona. Only on his way does he hear that he actually somehow won the contest...but how, I have no idea.

While I think the current score of 8.1 is way too high, I think it is better than the average film he made from this time period--mostly because the plot was not too important and it just gave him a chance to show off his many skills.

By the way, note the song "Old Kentucky Home", as the lady sings the seldom-heard words--and they are NOT the least bit politically correct! No, they are pretty sure to offend.

Just like in the standard hotel ratings, Buster rates 5 out of 5 stars in my book!!

Now per the IMDb rating scale, if ALL this film consisted was Buster's dance scenes, especially the two-minute scene in the green room, I'd give it a 10.

Otherwise, I thought the movie itself was overall just another travesty among Keaton's 1930's films, only allowing Buster to do a mere shadow of what he did and could accomplish on his own films, and for that I'd give it a 0.

So: Buster = 10, the film itself = 0, the average of which is 5 IMDb rating stars.

Grand Slam Opera (1936)

** (out of 4)

Elmer Butts (Buster Keaton) travels from Arizona to New York where he wants to appear on an amateur-hour talent contest but while in town he also tries to win the heart of a young woman (Diana Lewis) he sees cooking pancakes in a window. These Educational-Keaton pictures were never known for their stories and that's a good thing because there usually wasn't any and that's certainly the case here. It's said that these films were shot on $20,000 budgets and that Keaton pocketed $5,000 of that so it's clear the rest of the money went somewhere other than a screen writer. Pretty much this entire film has Keaton annoying the girl and then finally getting on the radio show where his "talent" is juggling a bottle, which of course doesn't do much for those people listening on a radio. Ha ha. As was the case the majority of the time, this short really doesn't add up to too much in the end, although some might get a kick out of seeing Keaton doing a wide range of tricks. The majority of these comedy bits happen inside a bedroom where Keaton tries to rehears but of course nothing goes right. He tries jumping on a bed and it collapses. He tries to do a trick with a bowling ball and it crashes through the floor. Of course, the girl he loves is in the room below and this just makes her hate him more. Keaton at least gives an energetic performance as he's clearly trying to make something out of nothing. Lewis was pretty bland in her role and Harold Goodwin is also wasted in the role of the band leader who gets into it with Keaton on the air.