FILM REVIEW OF ''STEAMBOAT BILL, JR" (1928-SILENT)

This imaginative comedy lacks the prestige of Buster Keaton's classic American Civil War comedy "The General." Nevertheless,"Steamboat Bill, Jr." (***1/2 out of ****)surpasses "College." Clocking in at a concise 69 minutes, this amusing father and son reconciliation drama includes a romance along the lines of William Shakespeare's "Romeo & Juliet." Furthermore, the narrative chronicles the emergence of our diminutive protagonist as a man who can master his fate after he appeared destined for disaster. In other words, Buster casts himself as an underdog again as he did in "College." The problem with this existential comedy is our hero's transition from a clumsy nincompoop to an expert acrobat who can perform high dives off the top of a steamboat and rig it up in such a way so he can operate it single-handedly lacks credibility. The only shred of evidence that our eponymous hero has what it takes occurs when he surprises the sheriff, slugs him in the stomach, and watches as the fellow falls like an avalanche. More amazing than any of Buster's clever sight gags as he learns his way around the paddle wheeler is the spectacular special effects. Remember, the special effects personnel pulled off these stunts long before computer-generated special effects were available.

The Carl Harbaugh story concerns a pugnacious Mississippi River paddle wheeler captain who meets his son, Willie (Buster Keaton of "The Three Ages"), for the first time since he last saw him as an infant in the crib. Essentially, Bill does not know what Willie looks like. Meantime, Willie arrives at River Junction from Boston dressed like a fashionable college graduate, wearing a beret, sporting a pencil thin mustache, a spotted bow-tie, and carrying a ukulele under his arm. He has sent his father a telegram informing him that he will be able to recognize him by the white carnation that he will be wearing in his coat lapel. Unfortunately, Willie seems to have forgotten that it is Mother's Day and everybody is wearing a white carnation. Bill (Ernest Torrence of "Captain Salvation") and his First Mate, Tom Carter (Tom Lewis of "Adam and Eva"), head off to the railway station fully expecting to greet a big strapping lad twice the size of William Canfield, Sr. Nobody at the train station fits the description of the elder Canfield's son. As the Southern Railway locomotive with the number 45 on it pulls out, it turns out that Willie Canfield has been out of sight on the other side of the tracks. He makes an idiot out of himself as he approaches all the men in the station and flashes his carnation at them. Eventually, Willie loses the carnation, but he does not realize it and keeps poking his empty lapel into the faces of strangers. Finally, Bill recognizes Willie by the tag on his luggage while Willie is dancing and playing his ukulele for a baby in a stroller. Clearly, the 1920s were a different age altogether when babies could be left unattended in carriages at a public place without fear of being abducted.

Once he has picked his son up at the depot, Bill ushers Willie into a barber chair and orders the barber to shave off the "barnacle" of a mustache on his lip. Later, Bill drags Willie to a haberdashery to replace the beret with a hat that a man would wear. No sooner have they left the store than a gust of wind whips the white hat off his head and blows it into the river. Willie pulls the beret out of his back pocket and slips it back onto his head. Predictably, Bill is surprised to see the beret reappear, but he does nothing. Earlier, while Willie enconsed in the barber chair, Willie noticed that a cute little thing sitting opposite him is none other than Kitty King (Marion Byron of "Song of the West"), who attended the same college in Boston. These two try to get together, but their fathers refuse to countenance their relationship. John James King (Tom McGuire of "The Reckless Age") tells Kitty that he will pick the right man for her and the candidate will not be "the son of a river tramp." Similarly, Bill tells Willie that he will choose an appropriate mate for him and will not have a King for a daughter-in-law. Basically, Steamboat Bill and King are competitors in the paddle wheeler business on the Missisippi River. Recently, King brought in his brand new paddle wheeler and convinces the Public Safety Commissioner condemn the paddle wheeler--the Stonewall Jackson--that Bill owns. Bill goes after King, and King has him thrown in jail. The same day that the sheriff puts Bill in jail is the very day that Bill had arranged transport for Willie back to Boston. Willie sees the authorities take his father to calaboose and contrives a scheme to break him out. He conceals several tools inside a giant loaf of bread and convinces the sheriff to let him give it to his father. Initially, Bill wants nothing to do with Willie until his son shows him what the loaf contains. Bill breaks out, but Willie is caught. The sheriff cracks an unsuspecting Willie over the head with his six-gun and sends Canfield Junior off to the receiving hospital.

The major set-piece of "Steamboat Bill, Jr." is a high wind storm that tears up all the buildings in River Junction, blows the top off the hospital, and sends the jail into the river. The physical sight gags that Keaton performs are some of his best and most imitated. In one scene, the entire facade of a building falls on Willie, but he is standing where the window is so he is not hurt! Each gag is beautifully orchestrated by director Chas. F. Reisner who specialized in comedies, including the lesser Marx Brothers picture "The Big Store" and the Abbott & Costello comedy "Lost in a Harem." Even the smallest of gags, such as peanut hulls--which Bill refers to as "cocoanut shells"--that cut their bare feet up when they cross a floor are hilarious. The spectacle of Keaton clutching an uprooted tree that is hurled into the river is incredible as are the flying buildings that Buster runs into and out of. Of course, Willie and Kitty hook up in the end. Keaton performs all of his stunts and they are pretty amazing. "Steamboat Bill, Jr." ranks as a memorable Buster Keaton epic with several well-staged sight gags.

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FILM REVIEW OF ''THOR'' (2011)

Although the newest addition to the Marvel Comics’ cinematic super hero pantheon boasts superlative production values and a serviceable cast, “Hamlet” director Kenneth Branagh’s “Thor” (** OUT OF ****) qualifies as nothing special. This preposterous, larger-than-life, 115-minute, PG-rated drivel shifts scenes between contemporary New Mexico and the legendary realm of Asgard where Norse royalty reside in Wagnerian grandeur. “Agent Cody Banks” scenarists Ashley Edward Miller & Zack Stentz along with “Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer” scribe Don Payne gave “Thor” their best shot based on a story by “Ninja Assasin” scenarist J. Michael Straczynski and “Poseidon” writer Mark Protosevich. Despite those best efforts, “Thor” amounts to an undistinguished ‘origins’ epic about Odin’s arrogant offspring. No surprises lurk in this predictable, cookie-cutter opus about the famous hammer wielding Norse champion.

Basically, “Thor” boils down to a boy-gets-hammer, boy-loses-hammer, and boy-gets-hammer back. During this tedious process, our hero has to acquaint himself with the meaning of humility and compassion. Handsome Aussie stud Chris Hemsworth, who played Captain Kirk’s father in “Star Trek” reboot, provides the appropriate brawn and blond hair as the eponymous hero who wrestles with anger management issues. Incidentally, the real Thor of lore possessed red hair and a red beard. Meantime, Academy Award winning actress Natalie Portman, Kat Dennings, and Stellan Skarsgård co-star in the Earth scenes, while Oscar-winner Anthony Hopkins lords it over the Asgard scenes as the one-eyed Odin. Of course, Thor and leading lady Jane become an item, but the film dwells on family woes more than romantic wooing.

“Thor” opens in Puente Antiguo, New Mexico. Astrophysicist Jane Foster (Natalie Portman of “Black Swan”), her mentor Dr. Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgård of “Good Will Hunting”), and their wisecracking assistant Darcy Lewis (Kat Dennings of “Defendor”) are in the middle of nowhere searching for an atmospheric anomaly at night. All hell breaks loose and Jane collides with somebody when they plunge their vehicle into a storm-like phenomenon. Before we learn who they’ve struck, the plot propels us back in time to Norway in 965 A.D. Odin has triumphed over the imperialistic Frost Giants, led by King Laufey (Colm Feore of “Chicago“), and thwarts them from conquering Earth. Odin loses an eye and exiles these icy blue dastards to their frozen world of Jotunheim. Furthermore, Odin confiscates the Casket of Ancient Winters that serves as their source of power. Later, when Odin is about to crown Thor, some Frost Giants infiltrate Asgard to recover the casket. Although Odin dismisses the attempt as a botched effort, Thor wants to wage war on the Frost Giants. Odin and he call each other names. Afterward, Thor slips away with his brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston of “Midnight in Paris”) and a quartet of his warrior comrades to storm Jotunheim. When Odin learns about Thor’s insubordination, he banishes him to Earth. Thor is sucked into a wormhole and hits planet Earth about the same time that Jane bumps into him with her vehicle.

Meanwhile, the devious Loki learns a disturbing secret about his past from Odin. The truth is that Loki was born a Frost Giant, but Odin adopted him in hopes that someday Loki might bring peace to the warring adversaries. They quarrel about it, and Loki causes Odin to fall into a deadly sleep. None of this deep sleep nonsense is clarified, but the implication seems to be that Odin is hovering near death. Back on Earth, Thor finds out ‘Mjolnir' has crashed to Earth and embedded itself in bedrock. Everybody tries without success to wrench the hammer from the rock, shades of "The Sword in the Stone." This scene qualifies as one of the funniest, featuring Marvel Comics guru Stan Lee in an amusing cameo as he struggles to extract the hammer. Eventually, the Norse god scrambles to the site for his treasured hammer. Thor has no luck with ‘Mjolnir’ and fears the worst. As Odin lies in a coma-like rest, Loki takes over his father’s duties. Now, he dispatches an enormous robot called Destroyer to complicate matters. Destroyer virtually wipes out the entire town where Jane and company live.

As superhero movies go, nobody in “Thor” is in immediate jeopardy, and you know the hero will survive no matter how intimidating Destroyer looks. The combat scenes never generate any excitement. Sure, several characters experience some close scrapes with mortality, but nobody dies. Worse, some characters get away with more than others because Branagh and his quintet of writers don’t make us privy to their special powers. Watch Loki and you’ll see. As villains rate, Loki is more deceitful than menacing, and Thor never performs anything picturesque, like the heroes in “Iron Man,” “The Incredible Hulk,” and “The Fantastic Four” franchise. Surprisingly, neither Jane nor her friends are kidnapped by the villains. Ironically, none of those eponymous protagonists share Thor’s supernatural powers.