College

Ronald is top of his class at school. In his graduation speech he explains that sport is unnecessary and the whole hall boos him. The girl he loves is in the hall and wants him to be an athlete. He goes to college. He tries every sport in turn: baseball, running, jumping, the discus. He is no good at any of them. The coaches throw him out, his teammates laugh. He has no money, tries to find work, and is no good at that either. Then something happens and Ronald has to do, one after another, everything he could never do. James W. Horne directs. Buster Keaton takes the lead and produced the film. It is among the last Keaton made at his own company; soon after he joined a large studio and lost his creative control. The humour is physical and entirely about incompetence; in his other films the character is usually good at something, and here he can do nothing. Keaton used a double for the pole vault, which was rare in his career. A makeup choice in one section is plainly uncomfortable now and carries the assumptions of its period. The ending is short and unexpectedly bleak; the last shot changes the whole register of the film. Keaton's expression does not change through the film and the comedy comes out of that fixity. Who it is for: viewers who like silent comedy and Keaton. Who it is not for: some scenes are indefensible now, the plot is thin, and the pace uneven.