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Buster Keaton: Cut To The Chase (Paperback)

by Marion Meade (Author) "Summer lingers like death on the prairie..." (more)
Key Phrases: scenario editor, air date, clipping collection, Buster Keaton, Technical Credits, New York (more...)

2.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (20 customer reviews)

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Silent film star Buster Keaton (1895-1966) developed his trademark deadpan expression and acrobatic artistry, according to the author, as a result of the abuse he received from his father, Joe. As part of a vaudeville act, Joe began brutally throwing five-year-old Buster around the stage and beat him at the first sign of fear. When he was 21, Keaton left his uncaring parents and began acting in silents made by comedy star Fatty Arbuckle. His career blossomed from 1920 to '28, when he established his own company and wrote, starred in and directed films like The Navigator (1924). After the company was dissolved, Keaton's career declined until the 1950s, when he made a comeback and appeared in Charlie Chaplin's Limelight. Alcoholism hastened the end of his marriages to Natalie Talmadge (the couple had two sons) and Mae Scriven. He achieved control over his drinking, and his third marriage, to Eleanor Norris, was a success. This is an engrossing portrait of a tormented comedic genius, with an extensive filmography (67pp). Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal
Released to coincide with the centenary of Keaton's birth, this comprehensive biography fills gaps in the silent-film comedian's life history while dispelling a few rumors. Meade (Dorothy Parker, Villard: Random, 1987) rehashes familiar territory with a fresh eye: Keaton's brutal upbringing in a vaudeville family, his liaison with Fatty Arbuckle (whom he eventually upstaged), the unlimited artistic freedom he enjoyed under Joseph M. Schenck, and the subsequent quashing of that creative control when his company was absorbed by MGM in 1928. The lost years of gag writing and bit parts, the wives and women, the chronic drinking are not glossed over but, rather, make his later rediscovery by historians and critics all the more poignant. With journalistic aplomb, Meade reaffirms Keaton's legend as the master of the sight gag and proves that, despite his technical virtuosity as a filmmaker, Keaton's effects are special because they are human. Meade shows that the man himself was just that. Recommended for most collections. [For another recent biography of Keaton, see Larry Edwards's Buster, LJ 4/15/95.?Ed.]?Jayne Plymale-Jackson, Univ. of Georgia Libs., Athen.
-?Jayne Plymale-Jackson, Univ. of Georgia Libs., Athens
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

Paperback: 464 pages
Publisher: Da Capo Press (August 21, 1997)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0306808021
ISBN-13: 978-0306808029
Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6 x 1.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (20 customer reviews)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,176,275 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Inside This Book (learn more)

First Sentence:
Summer lingers like death on the prairie. Read the first page

Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
scenario editor, air date, clipping collection, fried perch, centennial book, comedy director, silent drama

Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Buster Keaton, Technical Credits, New York, Roscoe Arbuckle, Joe Keaton, Los Angeles, Eddie Cline, Joe Schenck, Comique Film Corporation, Elgin Lessley, Fred Gabourie, Harold Lloyd, Italian Villa, Joe Roberts, Clyde Bruckman, Eleanor Keaton, Jules White, Paramount Pictures, Columbia Pictures, Educational Pictures, Raymond Rohauer, Uncredited Work, San Francisco, Woodland Hills, Charles Lamont

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Citations (learn more)

This book cites 55 books:

My Wonderful World Of Slapstick (Da Capo Paperback) by Buster Keaton on 5 pages
Hollywood Is a Four Letter Town by James Bacon in Back Matter (1), Back Matter (2), and Back Matter (3)
A Girl Like I: 2 by Anita Loos in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
Strong at the Broken Places: Overcoming the Trauma of Childhood Abuse by Linda Tschirhart Sanford in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
Civil War Cinema: A Pictorial History of Hollywood and the War Between the States by John M. Cassidy in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)

See all 55 books this book cites

13 books cite this book:

The Theater and Cinema of Buster Keaton by Robert Knopf in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
Everybody Was So Young: Gerald and Sara Murphy: A Lost Generation Love Story by Amanda Vaill in Front Matter (1), and Front Matter (2)
Gene Kelly: A Life of Dance and Dreams by Alvin Yudkoff in Back Matter
Reading Biography by Carl Rollyson on page 31
No Applause--Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous by Trav S.D. in Back Matter

See all 13 books citing this book

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Customer Reviews

20 Reviews

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(6)

Average Customer Review

2.8 out of 5 stars (20 customer reviews)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Buster's Baggage, March 25, 2001

By	Cheated (California USA) - See all my reviews

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.

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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not Bad But Many Errors, March 12, 2004

By	Heidi Crabtree (Kennesaw, GA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Buster Keaton: Cut to the Chase (Hardcover)

...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.

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Take the information provided with a grain of salt, September 28, 2007

By	calvinnme "Texan refugee" (Fredericksburg, Va) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)

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.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Oh, darn.
I wish somebody had told me that I was supposed to hate this book before I read it.

When I was a college boy (and that was some time ago) I got a job at as a... Read more

Published 16 months ago by Bill

1.0 out of 5 stars Poor research.
Why did Ms. Meade write a book about someone whom she clearly dislikes?
More importantly, why did she write such a poorly researched book? Read more

Published 23 months ago by Nancy Beiman

3.0 out of 5 stars Not a good biography
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... Read more

Published on June 2, 2006 by Beth

1.0 out of 5 stars A total waste - save your money and time
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... Read more

Published on January 18, 2006 by Bruce H. Jensen

4.0 out of 5 stars The Doctor is Out
I was actually surprised to find myself enjoying this one better than I expected to. Meade's tactic of laying some pretty heavy charges against dead people leaves something to be... Read more

Published on July 14, 2003

2.0 out of 5 stars Fails to portray any greatness in a great pioneer of cinema
Meade paints Keaton as a pitiful man and never seems to get at the heart of his passion for the cinema. Read more

Published on February 9, 2003 by elcoquiuno

2.0 out of 5 stars Has it's moments, but for the most part, it's annoying
Though Meade seems to enjoy Keaton's screen work, most of what she writes about him personally is written with either scorn or the most obnoxious form of pity. Read more

Published on January 20, 2002 by Stuck in the Past

4.0 out of 5 stars Cut to the Chase
This would be a much better book, except questionable statements (i.e. Buster was illiterate) and some vulgar speculations (i.e. Read more

Published on November 3, 2001 by Brother Frank

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent evenhanded biography
I'm a bit shocked by some of the reviews here for this book, which I felt did a very fine and balanced job of presenting Keaton's life story without resorting to the type of... Read more

Published on December 26, 2000

1.0 out of 5 stars A mix of inaccuracies and lies
Despite many refference notes and acknowledgements, Meade's claims range Meade's wild claims make any other "new discoveries" suspicious. Read more

Published on June 5, 2000 by Jeremy Mathews

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