Customer Reviews

Buster Keaton Rides Again/The Railrodder

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"Buster Keaton Rides Again/The Railrodder" is here on DVD! After watching the VHS version for several years, the improvement in picture and sound quality of the DVD is striking! Colors are vivid, picture is crystal clear, and the music sounds 100 times better than on the video version. This compilation is a must-have for true Keaton fans. "The Railrodder" is a short silent film (with music) which shows an aging Keaton doing what he did best. One of the last films he made (he died a year and a half after it was filmed) it is also an homage to the beauty of Southern Canada.

But the real gem of this collection is "Buster Keaton Rides Again," a b&w documentary of the making of "The Railrodder." It is a rare look at Keaton being himself, something that was usually kept from the public eye. We see how he worked, relaxed, and what made him smile. There is touching and endearing footage of him interacting with his wife Eleanor and a priceless scene of him singing and playing ukulele. Additionally, there is a short biography interwoven throughout, with some beautiful vintage photos and footage of Buster's early days. Highest recommendations!

Really beautiful double-bill, featuring some of Buster's final appearances. The Railrodder comes up sumptuously in DVD colour, with many sound and vision details I have never noticed before. Almost better is the 55-min documentary about the making of the film: a wonderful, all-too brief glimpse of Buster and Eleanor at work and play; very candid, funny - it moved me to tears at times. I love Buster so much, as an artist and as a human being. There's a delightful moment when a bunch of Canadian children talk direct to camera, beside themselves with excitement at the prospect of visiting their hero in his private carriage. Unforgettable.

"The Railrodder," a 25-minute Canadian film, finds Buster Keaton riding a motorized handcar from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Released in 1965 shortly before Keaton's death, this memorable short proves that the Great Stone Face, at age 69, was a vital artist who instinctively knew comedy. One is grateful that Keaton lived long enough to appear in this mini-masterpiece. The National Film Board of Canada had the foresight to make an hour-long documentary on "The Railrodder" production. The result was "Buster Keaton Rides Again" (1965) - an excellent, revelatory study of a genius at work. Both films now are available in pristine condition on this glorious DVD, which is a must-own for Keaton aficionados.

But the movie would be the same and the documentary too. A must have for any DAMFINO or Keaton fan. You see Buster laugh (which is worth the price alone) and he tells you about his career. The Railrodder is great a brilliant final curtain to an amazing career.

The Railrodder is an interesting and funny silent short Keaton made in 1964 in which he travels - rather accidentally - via a tiny motorized rail car from the East coast to the West coast of Canada as part of a Canadian travelogue. Meant to be just one of the various industrial films Keaton starred in late in his career, it turned out to be much more than that. This is because filmmaker John Spotton decided to "film the filming of" the Railrodder and thus make a documentary - "Buster Keaton Rides Again". As a result, we get rare - maybe the only - footage of Keaton at work as he comes up with gags, fights for his ideas when the director thinks a particular stunt is too dangerous, and as he basically co-directs by placing a group of workmen where he thinks they should be in a particular shot. We also get to see Keaton at rest and at play - his passion for bridge and baseball, his shyness around large crowds when he is honored by a town he is passing through, and the adorable relationship he had with his third wife Eleanor as she insists that he lie down and rest after a busy day and his response is "I should sell her".

The short and documentary were shot in the autumn of 1964, just some 16 or so months before Keaton's death in February 1966 from lung cancer. A few of Keaton's coughing fits captured on the documentary are thus somewhat sadly prophetic of what is soon to come. Thus this travelogue/documentary combo is essential viewing for any Keaton fan because we get to see him as he was at the end of his life - a happy man who still insisted on putting out the best work he could after 65 years in show business.

It clearly shows what a master Keaton was, as it was mostly him that came up with best gags of the short through his suggestions on how to improve things.

A documentary of a master at work

I have watched this DVD over and over and purchased several copies to give away. I love it. Personally, I recommend watching the documentary first and then the short film. You get to see that to Keaton the whole world was a stage. He would do great comedy for just one or two people between shots. Stopping and starting the train is one of my favorite segments. It is truly amazing to me that Keaton and Chaplin were both making cinematic history without any overlap is comedic perspective. One doesn't top the other but are totally different. I would also like to recommend the documentaries "A Hard Act to Follow" (about Keaton) and "The Unknown Chaplin". No filmmaker or person who loves film should miss these two. Sadly, "A Hard Act..." is only on VHS. It is available on DVD using the PAL format but that WILL NOT play on U.S. DVD players. I have to believe that someday that "A Hard Act..." will find it's way to DVD.

A sad-faced little man vacationing in Great Britain reads a newspaper containing the three-word exhortation "See Canada Now!" and with a grim, determined look at the camera flings himself off a bridge into the ocean, where he just happens to float to Canada's east coast where he sees a motorized railroad car conveniently located on a railroad track. With this absurd conceit begins one of comedy legend Buster Keaton's last films and what I consider the single greatest short film of all time.

For all the praise that has been (rightfully) heaped here on the elderly Keaton for his whimsical performance and typically original and beautifully timed sight gags, an equal heap of praise must be allotted director Gerald Potterton for his gorgeous colour photography (digitally remastered for DVD, so now looking sharper, brighter and better than ever) as well as an unforgettable soundtrack; a sort of jazz/ragtime/bluegrass fusion that fits Buster's comedy so perfectly you cannot imagine one without the other.

Canadian viewers will of course get a nice prideful sort of kick out of identifying the various landmarks Keaton admires from East to West between his bits of tomfoolery, while Keaton fans will marvel yet again at the creative vigour this peerless comic actor had to offer, right up to the very end.

An added bonus is a "making of" documentary, Buster Keaton Rides Again, a most succinct, satisfyingly up-close-and-personal profile of Keaton's life and work. If you don't love Buster Keaton now you will when you've finished these two glorious shorts.

We love all Buster Keaton movies, but this is special in its kind. The extra part which showed how the movie was done is awesome. He was an great actor of his own kind, he carefully included so many details in his movies that it is never boring to watch them again and again. With this movie we arose the interest in Mr. Keatons movies and they started to like them. This is a must-see movie.

I had not seen this before purchasing it. I am a relatively new Buster Keaton fan so I bought this because the other reviewers all gave it 5 stars and no doubt why. The documentary is excellent and The Railrodder is really great classic Keaton. Another Buster Keaton Must Have!