Saturday, February 18, 2012  Buster Keaton in NEIGHBORS (1920)
While Buster Keaton's fifth self-produced and co-directed short
subject represents a new high in stuntwork and overall comic
timing, it also stands as Keaton's most sustained commentary on
race, or at least the nearest he came to a commentary. The main
storyline of the 17-minute film is the Romeo-Juliet romance of
Buster and Virgina Fox, the children of hostile if not feuding
slum families whose yards are divided by a board fence. The
young people pass love notes through a knothole when their
parents aren't looking. Virginia's dad (Joe Roberts) has sent
Buster sailing on a clothesline back into his own yard, where
his own dad (Joe Keaton -- his own dad) was beating a carpet
before Buster replaced the carpet. Buster does a remarkable
vertical spin upon taking the blow, and Dad's efforts to release
him end with Buster face down in a rain barrel and head first in
the mud beneath it. When Dad finally extricates him, the camera
lingers on Buster's mud