The Balloonatic (1923)

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

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

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Balloonatic, The (1923) *** (out of 4) Buster Keaton tries to pick up women at an outdoor carnival but doesn't have any luck but he accidentally meets one of the women out in the wilderness where the two try to prove their survival skills. This is about medium range as far as Keaton shorts go but there are still some nice laughs including the haunted house bit at the start and near the end the bear gag works well.Available on Kino's The Art of Buster Keaton box set, which contains some of the greatest films ever made.

Actually, there are only a few minutes of Buster Keaton and the big hot-air balloon in this 22-minute movie. Most of it is Buster and Phyllis Haver out in country, separately, canoeing and having adventures fishing and hunting. In the end, they get together for a few scenes including a "cute" ending with some waterfalls. Overall, it's okay but nothing hilarious. Most of the gags are very loosely connected, but that's not unusual for a short silent comedy film. Buster provides most of the laughs but Haver, a new female face not seen by me before in a Keaton film, is not a bad comedienne. I watched this right after a much faster-paced Keaton short ("Neighbors") so this looked a little slow in comparison.

Despite the title, there aren't a lot of ballooning sequences in the film. While it is a balloon that takes Buster into the woods in this silent short, it is in the wild that the bulk of this movie is set.The film begins with Buster in a Fun House. Then, a few minutes later, he accidentally hitches a ride on the top of a balloon and goes from the beach to the wild wide open. The jokes up until then were just okay by Keaton standards. However, the jokes begin to improve and the film takes a nice leisurely pace as Buster makes himself at home in the great outdoors. He makes a boob of himself fishing, cooking out and almost gets eaten by bears, but he also meets a nice outdoorsy girl who he falls in love with in the end. Nothing really spectacular occurs--just like seeing Buster on vacation.

This is not one of Buster Keaton's best short features, but it has some good moments. Most of the gags are of good quality, and most of the sequences work well enough. The main thing it really lacks is that, unlike most of Buster's movies, it never really builds on itself or gets much momentum. In his best features, the setting and story help make the decent gags very funny and the good gags hilarious.Buster becomes "The Balloonatic" when he is trying to help a balloonist prepare his craft, and it accidentally takes off with Buster on top of the balloon. He winds up in the wilderness, where he and a young woman that he meets (Phyllis Haver) have to fend for themselves.Although this one doesn't fit together quite as well as his best comedies, being mostly a series of only loosely-connected gags, some of them are very good in themselves. If nothing else, it has enough that it should probably be of interest at least to those who are already Keaton fans.