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The diving bell and the caterpillar. The masterstroke is to turn Murnau's phantom ship into a gargantuan comic prop for a couple of stranded nitwits, who have no clue what to do with it. Buster Keaton's aristocratic bull calf ("Living proof that every family tree must have its sap") gazes out the window and ponders the happiness of newlyweds: "I think I'll get married. Today," he declares to himself, the thought still floating in his mind as he steps fully clothed into his bathtub. The girl, a fellow moneyed ninny (Kathryn McGuire), is an unwilling bride until they're both set adrift in a vast, empty liner and their pampered inexperience is put to the test. The first challenge is finding each other through a balletic game of hide-and-seek on deserted multi-level decks, the next ordeal is making coffee. (A handful of unground beans and a bucket of salt water fill the bill, sort of.) The story goes that Donald Crisp was hired to direct dramatic scenes but then decided he wanted in on the gags, much to Keaton's chagrin—hence his cameo as a scowling photograph swinging outside the hero's porthole? Romantic relationships are the metaphor, the unruffled surrealism of hatchets on tin cans and fencing matches with swordfish, the mutual dunking and splashing of the clueless seafarers' mating dance. And there's the eponymous vessel, introduced out of Whistler (Old Battersea Bridge) and explored sublimely: Lavish purgatory, haunted mansion, medieval fortress invaded by cannibals, a continuously heaving frame, a space station as uncanny as Kubrick's. Hitchcock at least twice (Rich and Strange, Lifeboat), The African Queen, Juggernaut... The closing gag reveals how much futuristic art is called into play, and lays out the choreography for a famous Fred Astaire number. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |