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| SAPHEAD,
THE (directors: Herbert Blach/Winchell Smith;
screenwriters: from the play The New Henrietta by Winchell Smith and Victor Mapes/June Mathis/Bronson
Howard/Victor Mapes; cinematographer: Harold Wenstrom;
music: Robert
Israel; cast: Edward Jobson (Reverend Murray Hilton), Beulah
Booker (Agnes Gates), Edward Connelly (Mr. Musgrave),
Edward Alexander (Watson Flint), Irving Cummings (Mark
Turner), Odette Taylor (Mrs. Cornelia Opdyke), Carol
Holloway (Rose Turner), Jack Livingston (Dr. George
Wainright), William H. Crane (Nicholas Van Alstyne),
Buster Keaton (Bertie Van Alstyne); Runtime:
77; MPAA Rating: NR; producers: John Golden/Marcus
Loew/Winchell Smith; Kino; 1920-silent) "Slightly amusing." Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz Metro films borrowed Buster
Keaton with permission from his backer Joseph M. Schenck.
Previously Buster was working with Fatty
Arbuckle on two-reel
comedy shorts. This was the slapstick comedian's first
chance to star in a feature-length film, and was the
big break he was looking for. The Saphead is based on
the old-fashioned
melodramatic play The New Henrietta by Winchell Smith and Victor
Mapes. In 1915 Douglas Fairbanks starred
in the first film version of the play entitled The
Lamb. Director
Herbert Blach blandly directs and writers June Mathis
and Bronson Howard never get enough comedy or big
moments out of it, nevertheless despite its stagey
creakiness retains a slight charm and is slightly
amusing. Bertie Van Alstyne (Buster
Keaton) is the hapless scatterbrained but good-hearted
spoiled son of Wall Street tycoon Nick Van Alstyne (William H. Crane). Dad
objects to his idler son marrying his sweet ward Agnes
Gates (Beulah
Booker), and
kicks him out of the house but gives him $100,000 to buy
a seat on the stock market in the hopes he makes
something of himself. The slimy evil stock broker
Mark Turner (Irving Cummings), Nick's
son-in-law, palms off his love letters and that he
sired an illegitimate
child with a
woman named Henrietta to the unsuspecting virgin
Bertie and lets the destitute woman die without giving
her a cent. When Nick goes on a sailing vacation, Mark
steals his Henrietta Mine securities and sells them
off. This causes the stock to plummet. Mark plans to
become rich by buying back the stock when it reaches a
bottom low, only his plan is foiled when Bertie,
visiting the NYSE for the first time, is advised by
his dad's broker (Edward Alexander) to buy back the stock. The
result is Bertie saves his dad from bankruptcy,
becomes rich overnight and wins the girl. After a long dry spell, the
film explodes with some good Buster physical comedy in
the chaotic climax scene set at the Stock Exchange. REVIEWED ON 10/26/2011 GRADE: B- Dennis Schwartz: "Ozus' World Movie Reviews" © ALL RIGHTS RESERVED DENNIS SCHWARTZ |