Customer Reviews

Buster Keaton: Cut To The Chase

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

On the positive side, this book talks about the lean years in Buster's life, including his second marriage, that are pretty much ignored in other books on Keaton. It offers a complete filmography at the end, and talks about what has happened to Buster's extended family in the years since his death. On the negative side, the author jumps to conclusions or offers her own opinions about what happened as facts. Like everyone else, I vehemently disagree with the functional illiteracy accusation. Did Buster lack formal education? absolutely. Was he illiterate? absolutely not, based on jobs he had at MGM that involved working on scripts and his own diary which prove otherwise. Buster was interested in his craft and had no use for going over contracts and legal issues with a fine-toothed comb, a character trait that was part of his undoing for sure, but not proof he couldn't have read them had he been interested.

The specific errors that the author makes include her claiming that by the late 50's Buster didn't even remember who Dorothy Sebastian was - part of her portrait of Buster as an emotional cripple. However, about the same time, Buster wrote, along with a ghost-author "My Wonderful World of Slapstick" in which he talks about the dilemma he was in when he met his third wife Eleanor while already involved with a woman with which he had an off-and-on relationship for the previous ten years, and how he wanted to break it off with this woman to pursue Eleanor without hurting the woman's feelings. He is obviously talking about Dorothy Sebastian here, but he comes from an era in which he doesn't want to "kiss and tell" and omits her name from the book. There are other erroneous conclusions in which the author totally misinterprets certain magazine articles to claim Buster is actually complaining about this or that. The point is, take this book with a grain of salt. Entertaining it is, entirely accurate it is not.

From reading this book - and others for that matter - the person who comes across as a total mystery to me is Natalie Talmadge - Keaton's first wife. Here again, the author adds her own conclusions about Natalie's attitudes that I can't see Natalie ever conveying to anyone who would have revealed them, but the following facts are inescapible:
a. Natalie spent a huge percentage of Buster's money on clothes she never wore and homes Buster really couldn't afford.
b. Natalie ceased sexual relations with Buster after the birth of their second child.
c. The effect of (a) was that Buster HAD to sign the contract with MGM in order to keep the money pouring in after his own studio closed.
d. The effect of (b) was that Buster looked elsewhere for female companionship.
e. The effect of (c) was that Buster became an alcoholic when he no longer had any creative control over his films and was reduced to a performer in movies he largely held in contempt.
f. Natalie ultimately divorced Keaton because of (d) and (e) and was seethingly angry with him for the rest of her natural life, when in fact her own actions ( (a) and (b) ) contributed to the whole cycle in the first place.

In spite of this obvious chain of events, Keaton never spoke evil of his first wife, a fact that even the author of this book admits. That truly makes him a class act in my book.

Why did Ms. Meade write a book about someone whom she clearly dislikes?
More importantly, why did she write such a poorly researched book?
AS soon as I read that Keaton was 'illiterate' I knew that this book was not a keeper.
(Buster Keaton kept a diary when he was seven years old, and wrote screenplays when he was an adult. Any biographer can check this out.)
And any reader can purchase a much, much better biography of Buster Keaton. THE MAN WHO WOULDN'T LIE DOWN or KEATON are both superior to this one.

...the most annoying perhaps eing the myth that Buster Keaton was illiterate. True he was not educated, but to say he was illiterate is false. I've seen photocopies of his journal he kept during WWI, and it's clear he studied his Army manuals and learned Morse code and practiced it. The author also makes the mistake of relaying to us conversations that took place between Buster and his mother-in-law, both deceased of course. How would she know what was said? These were about things Buster would have discussed with no one else. It's an intro to people unfamiliar with Buster, but by no means accurate. She could have skipped the hearsay about his early life "with women" as that is unfounded too.

It's really a shame that Keaton's 100th birthday was marked by the publication of a book that tries so hard to shoehorn him into the stereotypical Sad Clown mold...Ms. Meade does her best to portray him as a dysfunctional, unhappy, frozen, remote, illiterate wretch, when in fact he was none of those things. The illiteracy allegation is particularly foolish--how could a supposedly meticulous researcher have overlooked the existence of Buster's own (very tidy) diary? Watch the Brownlow/Gill documentary "A Hard Act to Follow", or dig up a used copy of the Blesh biography, but for heaven's sake don't let this dreadfully misguided piece of manufactured pathos be your only impression of Buster!

This is not an ideal book for sensitive Buster fans who feel over-protective of him and cannot tolerate criticism of the darker side of his personal life. The book is at times an offensive target into that, and does not always paint him as flattering. Marion Meade does not hesitate to label Buster as somebody with vanity, and likes to use the term "extreme egotism" to describe him. It may be that Meade has drawn on this conclusion because as a child, Buster was the center of attention at all times, as a result of becoming a vaudeville star at about the age of 5, and with this, he was the main breadwinner in the family, therefore, the center of attention which may have grown into extreme egotism. Meade also states that Buster was illiterate. Buster may have been unschooled because of his traveling vaudeville show, but he wasn't illiterate. I've seen his penmanship, both handwriting and printing. Also, he was able to read the part of "Little Lord Fauntleroy" when he was 11 years old (another family-breadwinner situation).

But other sources I've read and seen have proven that Buster's behavior was as a modest level-headed guy, a miracle to occur in the world of show business. During his successful years, he did not hesitate to loan money to leeches, rarely getting paid back. He also financially supported his entire family, siblings and all, even after they were well past adulthood.

However, because I thrive on Hollywood trash, I recommend this book to anyone interested in old Hollywood gossip because it's a page-turner. It's dense with information. It does not skip any part of his 70-year life, which previously written books have done. Meade gives us a lot of background information on the people in his life. Buster was married 3 times, and it's hard to find information in other books about his 2nd wife, Mae. This one gives us her full background, and also what became of her after the marriage ended in 1935. Two periods in Buster's life that are skimmed over in other books that he'd cooperated in the making of are his MGM years (1928-33) and the drinking problem years with Mae (1933-36), probably because they were too painful to talk about. In "Cut to the Chase", we get full explanation of those years.

This book is tripe, frankly. It boringly repeats a number of glaring mistakes from earlier efforts (the abused child myth to the nth degree, that alcohol and poor box office lost Keaton his independent status, that he was incapable of smiling, and so forth), and then augments these with the ridiculous assertion that Keaton was functionally illiterate. Pure nonsense! Instead of really contacting the people who know/knew Buster the best and following the leads that they could have supplied to the true story, she followed some half-baked psychological analyses, rumors, insouciant third-hand gossip and those earlier sources to arrive at a thoroughly faulty picture of the talented, humble, resilient and, on average, ultimately happy comic. Buster's real story was already available and fundamentally open to any serious author who asked for it at the time of this writing; why Meade chose to write such a miserable piece of trash is beyond me. Was she motivated by sensationalism? Does she look for the sinister in every shining story, no matter how foolish, and batter her readers with it? Who knows...

There are no great biographies of Keaton to date, although there are hopes that this may change in the not too distant future. The good information is certainly there. For a far better, if still somewhat faulty assay of his life, see the video "Buster Keaton: A Hard Act to Follow" by Brownlow and Gill on HBO Home Video, reportedly soon to be released on DVD (Summer 2006). Don't waste your time on Meade, unless you want to read a sorry tome of blatantly false assertions and despicable fiction.

Biographer Meade attempts to create controversy out of a non-controversial figure. Most laughable is Meade's claims concerning Keaton's illiteracy, in light of Keaton being paid as a writer at MGM during a 14 year period (1938-1952). A pity Meade's book couldn't be given a lower rating.

Fascinating to read if you enjoy reading celebrity tabloids, i.e., lots of dirt, unfounded rumors and outright untruths misrepresented as a biography. (Some nice photos, though.) Biggest lie is that Keaton was illiterate, which is absolutely absurd. A much more acurate picture of Buster's life can be obtained from his own autobiography which is the truth, at least as Buster himself experienced it. The 3-tape video "Buster Keaton: A Hard Act to Follow" is also recommended by this reviewer as well as the documentary of the making of "The Railrodder" titled "The Life and Times of Buster Keaton." Yes, Buster did some self-destructive things in his life, but they are far outnumbered by the gifts and talent which he made extraordinary use of during at least 65 of his 70 years of life.

This is a very detailed biography of Keaton. I don't put faith in non-fiction books that don't include bibliographies and footnotes and Meade's book has 41 pages of those so obviously she has done her research. She cites much of the info contained in the book, however, Meade makes several (almost slanderous)detailed statements about Keaton, then doesn't back them up in the notes. What really pissed me off was Meade wrongly using a known fact to exaggerate the "abuse" from his father. On page 37 she wrote how Joe Keaton "abused" Buster on the stage and 1935 X-Rays revealed cracked vertabrae to prove it then on page 145-146 she mentions the exact same 1935 X-Rays revealing the cracked vertabrae when telling the story of the stunt that went wrong that broke his neck while filming a movie years earlier. I found Meade to be somewhat of a drama queen because she exaggerates a lot of things too numerous to count. All throughout the book Meade states Keaton lied in his autobiography. I don't think he lied-he just didn't give details about some of the stories leaving me with many questions. The reason why I got Meade's book in the first place was to try and fill in the gaps. According to her notes, Keaton's widow and his children helped Meade in her research but I would like to think that reading the finished product left them very unhappy. Meade does go out of her way to show Keaton in an unflattering light. I too was very irritated by her insisting Keaton was illiterate. Since he had only 1 day of school I'm sure he didn't read or write very well but he obviously learned enough through the years to get by in life. I have read the other reviews regarding this book and I agree with them. I don't recommend anyone buy this book but if you want to read it check it out from your local library like I did and save your money.

Meade paints Keaton as a pitiful man and never seems to get at the heart of his passion for the cinema. The only emotion I felt towards Keaton, one of my personal heroes, after reading this book was pity. I don't recommend it for anyone who has never previously read anything about the Great Stoneface.