College (1927)
Posted by J on August 29, 2008
Buster Keaton’s The General is now widely considered one of the greatest movies ever made, but it flopped 
so badly at the box office that Keaton had to put out this rather lame feature as his next film venture. College is filled with a lot of fish-out-of-water gags, but only the last five minutes are satisfying in any meaningful way. Keaton plays a college scholar who wants to be an athlete. The jokes all revolve around his attempts to become one, but these get old once you realize that Keaton is going to pretend to screw up at every track and field event.
Despite its silliness, College does prove that contemporary comedies do not do much better. Same setup, same plot development, same random humor. It is also nice to know that the nerd/jock dichtomy was flourishing in the 1920s as it does today.
The other shorts on this DVD are throwaways. The Electric House has promise, but it ends up being too repetitive. The print for Hard Luck is terrible because it was lost for sixty years.
If you haven’t seen a Keaton movie yet, start with The General (the DVD of which also has the fantastic short Cops) or Sherlock Jr.
