College (1927)

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

College is just one of the three Buster Keaton movies I have ever seen. and in this old tale of boy-gets-girl, you can truly see how Keaton was masterful talent in showing AND pantomiming comedy. In short, this is an old tale taken from countless myths and narratives from millennia back, that tells the tale of an unlikely lad that falls (perhaps wrongly so) for a girl that is perhaps outside his class and/or possibilities. The antagonist humorously and recklessly does any and all things he thinks the girl in question would love him for! To include football, rowing, tack and field and more. He problem is, is that he's a bit of an intellect and a nerd. The opening of the movie even shows him denouncing such things as athletics as ridiculous and silly. Nonetheless he tries his hardest, and actually does fair in some of his sporting endeavors. AND he get's the girl at the end. Fun tale. As a father though, I'm not sure if I would encourage such a stance like this on winning relationships! There's a better route to take.

This is an inferior Buster Keaton feature film. Considering how brilliant Keaton was, and how marvellous many of his feature films are, this one is a serious disappointment. I do not believe it would necessarily have been regarded that way when it came out, however. A lot of sport has flowed under the bridge since then. The film is primarily about Buster trying and failing at every conceivable sport (except football) which was common then at 'college' (the American term for university). Buster plays a bookish student who has contempt for sports but in order to try to win the heart of the girl he loves, tries to become a sportsman. In the days before sport was on television ad nauseam every single day, this would have had much more appeal than it has now. Sport historians of course would find this film fascinating, if there are any sport historians, that is. All the expected things happen: Buster tries the shot-put but cannot lift the shot and falls over under its weight, he tries the high jump but crashes into the rod, he tries the hurdles but knocks them all over, and so on. Considering that this film came between Buster's famous films THE GENERAL (1926) and STEAMBOAT BILL JR. (1928), it is remarkable that it lacks a fraction of the appeal of either of them. The DVD is good quality, with a well-restored print, so there are no quality complaints. The silent era was coming to an end, and what one can say in favour of COLLEGE is that it could never have succeeded at all in the sound era, so if Keaton really wanted to explore sports, it is just as well that he squeezed this film in just in time. It may be that other people will enjoy this film far more than myself, especially if they are fascinated by the subject, and there is no questioning the brilliance of Keaton's comic timing and technique, which are up to their usual standard. He also co-directed the film. Another reviewer has justly observed that this film resembles in theme the excellent film THE FRESHMAN (1925) by Harold Lloyd, which I would say is far more amusing than this one. These days when there are so many teen flicks about, the subject of kids going to 'college' and being 'freshmen' has little novelty, but in the twenties, it was all of great interest, especially to the dazed parents trying to understand their increasingly wild children, an anxiety clearly demonstrated by the film THE WILD PARTY (1929) starring Clara Bow in a film about girls going wild at college. People interested in seeing anything and everything that clever Buster Keaton did can, of course, not afford to miss this major film of his, as long as they are prepared to be bored by parts of it and wonder why he bothered making it.

Ah, the never-ending debate of academics vs. athletics. Well in this case, Buster proves he's a rare winner at both! While I very much enjoyed the film overall, I kept thinking back to a YouTube clip I saw of Lillian Gish introducing this movie (sorta like they do on TCM). Her commentary alone is what made me decide that this would be the then-next BK film I'd watch! She made the introduction in her usual gentle, elegant way, especially in giving some first-hand perspective to what nowadays would be a very "politically incorrect" scene. But when she made a comment to the effect of, "Poor Buster! Imagine how difficult it probably was for a great athlete like him to do so many athletic feats 'wrong'!", that was all *I* needed to hear! So does "poor Buster", the top academic student, win over the girl he loves with all his clumsy (and sometimes painful!) attempts at athletics? You wouldn't think so, but then again, efforts and results don't necessarily always follow a clear path. Remember "wax on, wax off"? ;-D

College (1927) *** (out of 4) Lesser quality Buster Keaton film has him playing a dorkish book worm who is told by his girlfriend that she doesn't want him unless he becomes an athlete. Once in college Buster goes all out trying to find a sport that he can do. This isn't a masterpiece or even a very good film but it does have plenty of laughs and it's always fun seeing the athletic Keaton dumb it down and not being able to perform all the athletic stuff. I'd say this film was rushed into production after The General tanked at the box office and it's pretty much unlike anything Keaton had done before. You really don't get to see him genius stunts and instead you pretty much just get a one-note joke of a dork trying to be a star athlete. Still, there are plenty of laughs including the best sequence where Keaton, needing a job, gets in blackface only to have it melt off and then he's attacked by the real black folks.