Battling Butler (1926)

I hadn't seen Buster Keaton in more than five years. BB was actually his personal favorite and his second biggest box office hit, greatly eclipsing the same year's The General when they were new. (Perhaps people weren't ready for a Civil War comedy.) So why had I learned next to nothing about BB before?

The protagonist is not a butler, but he may well have one: Alfred Butler is a spoiled aristocrat, albeit sometimes ordered around by his father, who sends him to the wilderness to man up. There he meets someone identified only as "the mountain girl," who finds him annoying at first, but they quickly fall for each other. Alas, her father and brother won't approve a marriage to an apparent wimp, so Alfred's valet (yes, there with him) claims that Alfred is lightweight champion "Battling Butler," who happens to look similar in addition to having the same first and last names. The ruse works, but Alfred must actually travel to the training camp and then the arena, all the while trying to persuade his bride not to watch because she wouldn't like that side of him. To make matters worse, the real Battling Butler is none too fond of this imposter, especially after a mix-up of their similar-looking ladies....

You didn't expect a probable plot, did you? Battling Butler doesn't even look convincingly identical in the newspaper photo the valet shows the mountain men. And if you have a good mental picture of Keaton, you know he doesn't have the build for a prizefighter. He's only slightly less effete than Charlie Chaplin.

On that note, I don't consider BB's arena antics on par with the match in City Lights. Alfred's not unruly so much as scared and clumsy in pretty predictable ways. I was more amused by the first act, where he went glamping before glamping was cool. OTOH, he eventually moves like an RL pro, even providing inspiration for part of Raging Bull. You might enjoy that on its own or laugh at the contrast, like I did with the dance in Napoleon Dynamite.

Perhaps the biggest weakness is in the relatively low stakes. I usually see Keaton characters in mortal danger at some point. While death in the ring is not unheard of, it's hardly expected. Alfred seems more likely to die from his own ineptitude while hunting in the woods. (Those are some cute critters, BTW.)

BB is rare not just for being a Keaton flick based on a play, the slightly differently spelled Battling Buttler, but for being a silent adaptation of a musical. I don't know whether the songs would have notably improved it, but a synopsis tells me that different aspects of the plot had been emphasized. It sounds more farcical and thus quite possibly funnier.

I have to say that BB was more a product of its time than a classic. It has its moments; I just don't recommend giving it priority over other Keaton fare.