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Great Film overall

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

(Flash Review)Odd little plot but the stunts are fantastic! Something about competing steamboat companies and then later a massive wind and rain storm hits and Keaton's character attempts to rescue random people as well as himself. The first two acts are pleasantly amusing but the final act is historic and the original Mickey Mouse's Steamboat Willy is based off of this film!! This has the scene where the storm blows down several houses. One of the walls fall toward Keaton but he luckily survives thanks to a cleverly placed open window. This has been mimicked to death everywhere. Crazy and sadly I learned that Keaton, in real life, was feeling very depressed and that he did the stunt because he didn't care whether the open window missed him as it was a full-weighted wall. In retrospect, he would never have done that stunt! Anyway, this is a must see. Very clever, exciting, funny and tense! Second only to The General.

It is ironic that the greatest film stunt ever pulled by comedy's finest man in motion, Buster Keaton, involves Keaton doing little more than rubbing the back of his neck as he stands perfectly still.Perfect stillness is hardly apt in describing "Steamboat Bill, Jr.," Buster's final and finest independently-produced comedy. For nearly the entire length of the film, he's stumbling, falling, somersaulting, and splashing around like a total madman. What you get is a distillation of Buster as he made his name in his short-film days, filled out with the help of a riverboat yarn to develop his sentimental side in surprisingly winning ways. Stone face, yes, but stone heart, never!Bleak days are upon Steamboat Bill Canfield (Ernest Torrance), captain of the once-proud, now-near-derelict riverboat Stonewall Jackson. His rival, John James King (Tom McGuire) runs both the town of River Junction as well as a fancy riverboat which he plans to use to put Canfield out of business. With a kind of optimism we recognize at once as misplaced, Steamboat Bill anticipates the arrival of his son from Boston, expecting a tall, strapping lad and not at all someone like Buster outfitted with beret, pencil mustache, and ukulele."If you say what you're thinking," Steamboat Bill Sr. warns his first mate, "I'll strangle you!"A fish-out-of-water comedy that ends up putting everyone in the water, "Steamboat Bill, Jr." spends a surprisingly long time setting the scene and the final 20 minutes sorting it out in a wild, anarchic way that recalls classic Buster shorts like "One Week" and "Cops." It's not an easy Buster film to characterize, requiring the audience to know Buster's history in getting in and out of trouble.You expect he will win over his gruff father, but how? You just know he'll find a way to pay off his affection for King's sweet daughter Kitty (Marion Byron), but how will he square things with her likewise stern dad?There are a bevy of winning scenes in this gag-packed film. Just watch Buster's eyes in an early scene when a barber (played by Buster's real- life father) shaves off his 'stache while Papa Bill glowers over his shoulder. He's so alive to the hilarity of the moment yet gives nothing away, even after the barber plucks a loose hair off his cheek.Demonstrating the unseaworthiness of the "Stonewall Jackson," Buster accidentally knocks a life preserver into the water only to watch it sink like a millstone. Later, trying to impress Kitty, he stands at the deck barking orders to people she can't see aren't really there, only to bid a quick retreat when the first mate approaches to see what he's up to.Torrence is a riot, too, mortified at the Eastern fop he has sired and pushing him about, then getting violently enraged whenever he sees anyone else doing the same. His temper (and King's machinations) finally land him in prison, which Buster tries to help him break out of by baking him a giant loaf of bread stuffed with files and other tools. Big Bill, not knowing what's inside the bread, wants nothing to do with it or his disappointing son."I'll just wait around until he's famished," Buster says, then performs a pantomime for his father mimicking a jailbreak with two fingers and a thumb that reminds me of Charlie Chaplin's similar hijinks with baked goods in "The Gold Rush." Again, Buster's eyes are key to the comedy.I don't know what to believe about the famous story where Buster, told he was about to lose his independence as a filmmaker, allowed himself to be filmed in a life-threatening stunt where a building facade falls on his head, only to leave him unscathed as the open attic window lands directly upon him. It reads too perfect to be believed, because it's the ultimate gesture of a filmmaker's faith in his vision overcoming grim reality. But there it is, Buster's most vividly remembered stunt, as astonishing the 50th time you see it as the first.It's also astonishing how the scene is mere preamble to a lengthy hurricane sequence that amazingly sets all to rights in Buster's topsy- turvy world, a triumph of comic imagination over harsh reality. If Buster never got such a break in real life, it's some compensation to see him effortlessly wind up on top in this sterling comedy milestone.

William Canfield Jr. (Buster Keaton) arrives in River Junction from Boston to see his father Captain William Canfield who he has never seen before. The captain runs an old steamboat, and is in a fight with the powerful JJ King and his new ship. The captain trains the tiny Jr to work on his ship, and he soon falls for Kitty King, daughter of the captain's competitor. When a hurricane blows into town, it sets off one of the most amazing physical comedy that is quintessential Buster Keaton.Buster Keaton is one of greats from the silent era. This is one of his most iconic movies. It's has some fairly funny gags. The story has some good humor. Then the storm comes. The movie explodes in unbridled physical demolition and hilarity. Is there a more iconic silent movie image than the building falling over on him?

Buster Keaton's swan song as an independent filmmaker (before being swallowed into the MGM assembly line) tears a page from Mark Twain and trims it to fit his own unique character, with the Great Stone Face playing the hapless son of a rough-and-tumble riverboat pilot no longer able to compete against a wealthy corporate rival. The story is a clever variation of the familiar Romeo and Juliet scenario from Keaton's 'Our Hospitality' (even the Steamboat Bill surname-Canfield-is borrowed from the earlier film), and follows the classic silent comedy formula, showing Buster's transformation in the title role from hapless nitwit to heroic man of action, saving his father, the old man's rusty but trusted paddlewheel steamer, and (of course) the girl. Included along the way are some of the comedians best routines, from the unforgettable cyclone climax (in itself a catalogue of classic moments, and yet another reminder that Mother Nature was always Keaton's most reliable ally) to the quieter moment when Buster, using the camera as a mirror, tries on a variety of hats, including the familiar pork-pie of his two-reelers (which he guiltily tosses away). The director's credit is strictly nominal: this is a Buster Keaton comedy, and after all these decades the laughter hasn't dimmed whatsoever.