Strong and Moving!

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

For some unknown reason, Buster Keaton seemed to enjoy lampooning the idle rich. Once again he plays the no account rich son of a wealthy family.Alfred Butler (Keaton) is a lazy lay about who has a faithful valet (Snitz "arrange that" Edwards) at his service. To make a man of him, Butler's father sends him on a camping trip with his valet. Alfred has all of the comforts of home including an ice box (the iceman cometh each day), newspaper delivery, a comfortable bed etc. etc.The pair embark on a hunting excursion, but in spite of game all about them, Alfred fails to see the animals. What he does do is accidentally discharge his gun (backwards no less) and come upon a comely young mountain girl (Sally O'Neil) with whom he becomes immediately smitten. After rescuing Alfred from a failed fishing trip, the girl takes Alfred home to meet her father (Walter James) and brother (Bud Fine). The two are not impressed with Alfred and consider him to be unworthy of the girl.When the valet goes to "arrange" the marriage, he sees a picture of prize fighter Alfred "Battling" Butler (Francis McDonald) in the newspaper and decides to masquerade Buster as the fighter in order to gain the respect of the girl's family. You know where this is going to lead.Thinking Buster has won the world championship, and with her family's blessing, the two marry. Buster and Snitz decide that the deception must continue as "Battling" Butler is to begin training the very next day for the defense of his title. And the fun begins.Buster tries to work out with the champion but is found out. The champ walks out and his manager (Eddie Borden) and trainer (Tom Wilson)are told to get Buster in shape for the fight. The fight day arrives and.....................................................This was not Buster Keaton's best feature. In the first place, gone is his famous pork pie hat. He dresses, except for the training and fight sequences, in rich man's clothes throughout. He just doesn't look comfortable in that attire. Maybe that was intended, I don't know. Up to the point that he goes into training, I didn't think the film was all that funny. The laughs are just too few and far between during the first part of the film. The climatic fight at the film's climax was a little hard to believe in my opinion.Buster would hit a home run however, with his next film, "The General".As an aside, Francis McDonald had a career that spanned well over 50 years from the early silents to the 1960s. He was a regular in westerns playing mostly despicable characters is parts of varying size. He did have a small but effective part in Cecil B. DeMille's "The Ten Commandments" (1956).

It's curious that Buster Keaton, whose training was in a knockabout vaudeville act and slapstick comedy shorts, was so good at playing pampered, effete young millionaires. He just happened to be one of nature's aristocrats. Buster appreciated the comic possibilities of this character—starting out so helpless allowed plenty of room for dramatic development--and the role also suited his innate gentleness and quiet dignity. Buster played wealthy idlers in several of his movies, including The Navigator, but he was never more placidly twitty than in Battling Butler. For the first half of the movie he looks like a 1920s fashion plate, exquisitely groomed, demonstrating What the Well-Dressed Man Will Wear for hunting, fishing, etc. He is Alfred Butler, whose tycoon father, annoyed by his son's languid existence, sends him an a camping expedition to toughen him up. In the mountains, he sleeps in a vast tent complete with bed, wardrobe and tiger rug; his faithful valet lays out his clothes, draws his bath, and serves his meals on silver dishes. This is my idea of roughing it! While attempting to hunt (obliviously missing every animal in the forest) and fish (capsizing his boat in pursuit of a bobbing duck), Alfred encounters a pretty "mountain girl" (Sally O'Neil.) They fall in love, but her family won't accept this sissy as an in-law until Alfred's valet tells them that his employer is actually Alfred "Battling" Butler, a boxer contending for the lightweight title.Alfred goes along with the ruse for the sake of the girl. Then he encounters the real "Battling" Butler, and after a misunderstanding involving the boxer's wife, "Battling" tells Alfred that HE can fight the title bout with the "Alabama Murderer"—or he'll blow his cover. The rest of the film follows Alfred's difficulties as the trainers try to turn the playboy into a fighter. Along with the athletic sequences in his later movie College, these scenes offer the most sustained focus on Buster's extraordinary physique and what he could do with it.With his small stature, Buster could convincingly portray a milquetoast as long as he kept his clothes on, but once he strips down to boxing shorts it's all too obvious how exceptionally fit he was. In the opening shot of the training sequence, he's obviously supposed to look puny and defenseless; instead he looks like he could easily be a boxer. Despite his sculpted body, Buster plays these scenes with a realism that renders them almost painful to watch. He reacts the way any normal, soft-bellied human being would to being mercilessly pummeled. He shows hurt and exhaustion, and displays his own nearly limitless endurance of both. Buster had, it must be said, an unhealthy capacity to take punishment. It wasn't masochism, just that his pride in his physical abilities and the authenticity of his stuntwork outweighed any concern for his own well-being. He must have been used to pain: as the star of an act renowned as the roughest in vaudeville, he'd been "taking it like a man" ever since he was a toddler.At the end of the movie, "Battling" attacks Alfred viciously, and finally Alfred retaliates and beats the boxer unconscious. Many people dislike this fight, feeling it's uncharacteristic for Buster to triumph through brute force, sheer slugging, rather than ingenuity or pluck. The fight was Keaton's own addition to the play that was the source for the movie. The original ending simply let Alfred off the hook without having to fight, which Buster felt was dramatically unsatisfying. Pushed too far, humiliated too deeply, his meek character finally responds with fury and violence. It is uncharacteristic, but maybe he liked it for just that reason. Off-screen, Buster had a troubling passivity, especially in his unhappy married life, and he must have enjoyed playing a character who effectively fights back.Still, I prefer the first half of the movie, with its gentle pace, low-key jokes and elegant touches. Alfred's valet is played by Snitz Edwards, a tiny actor (he makes Buster look imposing) with a goblin face and a delicate performing style. Cute as a button, Sally O'Neil makes one of Buster's most effective leading ladies. In a sweet image typical of Keaton's sophisticated film-making style, when Alfred parts from his wife, as he drives away her face remains framed, like a cameo, in the oval window at the back of the car.Battling Butler was one of Keaton's most successful movies when it was released. Like Seven Chances and College, it lacks the otherworldly originality of his best work, but I've always liked it better than the other two and considered it a handsome, mature and underrated work. Lacking any large-scale set-pieces, this film rests almost entirely on Buster's performance. "Do you think you could learn to love me?" he asks Sally O'Neil. She replies, as I would: "I have."

The first 30 minutes of this Buster Keaton film are some of the stupidest he ever made, at least from what I've seen. I don't blame him; this is the film world where even since this period - around 1920 - marriage is always trivialized and people are always lying. Why was that so frequent in classic movies, in particular? It's disgusting. Here Alfred "Battling" Butler, a spoiled rich young man - in order to keep his girl - lies about being the lightweight boxing champion of the world, because that guy, who has the same name as him, is a hero and he wants to impress her and her big brother and big father. He wants to marry her right away because she's pretty and she consents as soon as she hears he's a big shot. Boy, those are great reasons for marriage!After the quickie marriage, Buster heads off for training camp for his supposed title defense against the "Alabama Murderer." Later, the real "Battling Butler," to do the impostor a favor and save his marriage, lets him be the real thing and fight while he retires.The training - and the first real laugh of the film - isn't until 47-minute mark when Buster begins training and can't get over the ropes. He is helpless outside and inside the ring as it turns out.The training escalates as Buster begins roadwork the next day.....but he isn't up to training or fighting or any of this. Fortunately, a big twist occurs late in the movie which saves Buster from going into the ring, although the little man does save his honor after he fights the real "Battling Butler."I would agree with the critics on this one: it's far from Buster's best work.

Keaton shows off his physical mimicry as a wealthy fop who must train as a prize fighter, but the climactic payoff doesn't deliver so great a punch: Keaton misses the Big Bout and fights the winner in the locker room! Good stuff, but a lesser effort.