Directed by Buster Keaton and Charles Reisner • 1928 • United States
Starring Buster Keaton, Ernest Torrence, Tom McGuire
STEAMBOAT BILL, JR. was Buster Keaton’s last independent silent comedy and also one of his finest. He stars as the sensitive son of a gruff riverboat captain (Ernest Torrence) who struggles to earn both his father’s respect and the love of beautiful Marion Byron. But the film is best remembered for the climactic cyclone sequence—a slapstick tour de force in which Keaton’s comedic stunts are performed amid the full-scale destruction of an entire town.
Up Next in Classic Hollywood
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The Breaking Point
Directed by Michael Curtiz • 1950 • United States
Starring John Garfield, Patricia Neal, Phyllis ThaxterMichael Curtiz brings a master skipper’s hand to the helm of this thriller, Hollywood’s second crack at Ernest Hemingway’s “To Have and Have Not.” John Garfield stars as Harry Morgan, an hone...
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Detour
Directed by Edgar G. Ulmer • 1945 • United States
Starring Tom Neal, Ann SavageFrom Poverty Row came a movie that, perhaps more than any other, epitomizes the dark fatalism at the heart of film noir. As he hitchhikes his way from New York to Los Angeles, a down-on-his-luck nightclub pianist ...
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History Is Made at Night
Directed by Frank Borzage • 1937 • United States
Jean Arthur plays a married woman who falls in love with a French headwaiter, much to the chagrin of her possessive and jealous husband.
