The Navigator (1924)
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100% of critics liked it
(12 reviews) -
88% of users liked it
(3,055 ratings)
At the request of his star Buster Keaton, producer Joseph M. Schenck purchased an obsolete ocean liner for $20,000. Keaton wanted to use the boat as a "prop" in his upcoming feature comedy, but went into production with nary a plot idea in his head. Eventually, Buster and his chief gagman… More At the request of his star Buster Keaton, producer Joseph M. Schenck purchased an obsolete ocean liner for $20,000. Keaton wanted to use the boat as a "prop" in his upcoming feature comedy, but went into production with nary a plot idea in his head. Eventually, Buster and his chief gagman Clyde Bruckman came up with a story involving two wealthy, pampered young people (played by Keaton and Kathryn McGuire), who through a series of fantastic but logical plot convolutions end up stranded together on a drifting, deserted ocean liner. At first, the young couple is helpless because they've never had to lift a finger in their lives. As the weeks pass, Keaton and McGuire become quite adept at fending for themselves, utilizing the huge facilities of the liner (its steam room, its enormous kitchen) for the simplest and most basic of necessities. An attack by a cannibal tribe requires Keaton to be more resourceful than ever; the build-up to the climactic contretemps between Keaton and the cannibals is almost as side-splitting as the climax itself. While the film is rife with some of Buster Keaton's most elaborate gags, he scores equally well with smaller, more intimate comedy bits, notably his losing battle with a deck chair and his attempt to shuffle a waterlogged deck of cards. Reasoning that the comedy in The Navigator would work best if built upon an utterly serious storyline, Keaton hired actor/director Donald Crisp to handle the "straight" scenes. Alas, as Keaton would later recall, the constitutionally humorless Crisp "turned gagman on us", resulting in miles of wasted footage. Thus, pay no attention to the "official" directorial credits: Buster Keaton alone is responsible for the helming of The Navigator. Joe Schenck's initial 20 grand investment proved sagacious when Navigator ended up as Buster Keaton's most profitable silent feature film. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Directed By
- Buster Keaton, Donald Crisp
- Genres
- Classics, Comedy
Unrated,
- In Theaters
- Jan 1, 1924 Wide
- On DVD
- Nov 20, 2001
- Studio
- MGM
Critic Reviews
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Fernando F. Croce, CinePassion
Keaton's master coup is in seizing Murnau's haunted ship as a gargantuan comic prop for a pair of stranded nitwits, who don't know what to do with it
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Steve Crum, Video-Reviewmaster.com
One of Buster Keaton's best, which is to say comedy classic.
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Dennis Schwartz, Ozus' World Movie Reviews
One of the great slapstick comedies from silent comic Buster Keaton.
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Gregory Weinkauf, ÜberCiné
Part of Keaton's charm is that he doesn't have to be zany in every single frame, which is charmingly illustrated here.
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Walter Chaw, Film Freak Central
Keaton is the great metaphysical existentialist: a modernist in the finest sense of the word.
See more critic ratings and reviews on Rotten Tomatoes
Fresh (60% or more critics rated the movie positively)
Rotten (59% or fewer critics rated the movie positively)
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Cast
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Buster Keaton
as Rollo Treadway
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Kathryn McGuire
as Betsy O'Brien
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Fred Vroom
as John O'Brien
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Clarence Burton
as Spy
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H.M. Clugston
as Spy
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Noble Johnson
as Cannibal Chief
