SUBJECTS

Fathers and sons -- United States -- Drama, Hurricanes -- Drama, River boats -- Mississippi River -- Drama

Steamboat Bill, Jr.

Charles F. Reisner
United States, 1928

Digital Restoration
Recommended for ages 7 & up

  • Judith Rosenberg
    Live Music
    Judith Rosenberg

    On piano

featuring

Buster Keaton, Ernest Torrence, Marion Byron, Tom Lewis,

The charming Mississippi River setting (actually filmed along the Sacramento Delta) is but one of Steamboat Bill, Jr.’s many pleasures. The film seems to have a direct line to Buster Keaton’s youth and soul in the tale of a sensitive lad trying to figure out the mettle of manhood in his overbearing dad. The climax is one of Keaton’s most dangerous and carefully planned stunts: a wall comes crashing down on him but he passes, untouched, through an open window. Keaton was the true he-man among matinee idols—the scene was done unfaked, with a real wall.

Judy Bloch
FILM DETAILS 
Screenwriter
  • Carl Harbaugh
Cinematographer
  • J. Devereux Jennings
  • Bert Haines
Language
  • English
Print Info
  • B&W
  • DCP
  • Silent
  • 69 mins
Source
  • Kino Lorber
CINEFILES

CineFiles is an online database of BAMPFA's extensive collection of documentation covering world cinema, past and present.

View Steamboat Bill, Jr. documents  

Steamboat Bill Jr. (review), Reader (Chicago, Ill.), J. R. Jones, 2005

Buster Keaton forever: Keaton centennial: 1895-1995 (program note), Pacific Film Archive, Judy Bloch, 1995

Keaton 100 (program note), Cinematheque Ontario/a division of Toronto International Film Festival Group, Sam Harkness, 1995

Forever Buster: Buster Keaton centennial tribute (program note), Castro Theatre, 1995

Steamboat Bill, Jr. (program note), Wellington Film Festival, 1993

Chaplin redux (article), American Film, Charles Silver, 1984

Critic's choice (review), Reader (Los Angeles, Calif.), Dan Sallitt, 1980

Keaton, the man who wouldn't lie down -- excerpt (book excerpt), Charles Scribner's Sons, Tom Dardis, 1979

Observations on Keaton's Steamboat Bill Jr. (article), Sight and Sound, E. Rubinstein, 1975

A marvelous silent Keaton film (review), 1969

Displaying 10 of 23 publicly available documents.


View all Steamboat Bill, Jr. documentation on CineFiles.