July 19, 2018
Doughboys – US,
1930
Spare a thought for poor Buster Keaton, and add one more for
all of the other silent actors in his position following the advent of sound. I
don’t mean poor in a financial sense,
but rather unfortunate, as in the state of having all that made them what they
were taken away in an instant. Imagine that: One minute you are on the top of
the world, the master of your own destiny; the next, you are reduced to making
schlop like Edward Sedgwick's Doughboys. And Doughboys is not the respectable kind of
schlop; it’s not the kind of schlop which people make because they woke up with
an idea that, despite all of their hard work, just never completely pans out.
Instead, it’s the worst kind, a safe, bland vehicle that employs a
paint-by-numbers formula, poorly utilizes its star, and inadvertently reveals
their lack of confidence in his or her creative impulses. Yep, it’s that kind
of film.
Yet it’s more than that. It’s also a tired example of a film
genre that moviegoers are all too familiar with now and which rarely has
produced much in the way of decent films. Laurel and Hardy did a version of it,
as did Abbott and Costello; Bill Murray even tried his hand at it later with Stripes. None of them had any success.
By it, of course, I mean that genre
in which some hapless soul finds himself accidentally registering for the army,
going through boot camp being harassed by a tough-as-nails drill instructor,
and then being sent to some foreign conflict where he inadvertently finds
himself saving the day and getting the girl. Sound familiar?
In Doughboys,
Keaton plays Elmer J. Stuyvesant, a pampered member of the upper class who
seems to have nothing better to do than wait outside his company’s factory
every afternoon and ask the same woman out. Each day he has in his hands a
fresh bouquet of roses, and each day he ends up handing them to his driver,
Gustav, who just shakes his head as if lamenting the repetitiveness of both the
offer and the rejection. Surely, there must be better ways to make a living.
After yet another rejection, Gustav suggests they make his
employment official by going to an employment registry. Elmer agrees, and
through a series of mishaps involving a sign on a door and some peculiar
questions, he abruptly finds himself shipped off to basic training. There he
encounters, you guessed it, a sergeant who has it in for him, a pal who just
happens to be a talented musician, and, wouldn’t you guess it, Mary (Sally
Eilers). That’s right. The woman who has made a habit of crushing his dreams
just happens to have been assigned entertainment duty at the very base he is
stationed at.
Unfortunately, instead of telling a compelling narrative,
the film is content to get by on short scenes in which Elmer errs, the sergeant
yells, and nothing much of consequence ever seems to occur. It’s everything I
hated about Buck Privates, but with
far fewer characters. Even more egregious, none of the film’s five writers –
two of them wrote the story, one contributed the scenario, and two share the
blame for the dialogue – saw fit to explore the romance that supposedly rests
at the heart of the film. Instead, we are asked to believe that Mary becomes
sweet on Elmer simply because he enlists. The characters have no heart-to-hearts
or anything even remotely resembling an extended dialogue, and this is a
mistake. Keaton’s silent films are known not just for the deadpan delivery of
its leading man. They are films about love and the great lengths one goes to
earn it. Think of College and its
perfect closing montage, showing the characters aging, dying, and resting next
to each other for eternity. Or Our
Hospitality, in which Keaton’s character swings through a waterfall to catch
the one he loves. It is moments like these, coupled with Keaton’s characters’
impressive ability to persevere when faced with adversity, that drive his early
films, yet Doughboys neglects this –
to its detriment.
Only two scenes truly stand out. In the first one, Elmer
sits with two of his army buddies and breaks out a ukulele. His friend
Nescopeck, played by singer Cliff Edwards, scats out a tune, during which his
voice alternates from a natural lower voice to a high-pitched cat-like growl,
essentially singing a duet with himself. Keaton chimes in, bopping a rather
likable beat, and a fellow soldier soon joins in, playing his rifle like a bass.
It’s a great scene, and it does nothing to advance the plot. It is also one of
the few times in the film when Keaton doesn’t look somewhat bored by what he’s
doing on camera. In truth, I don’t blame him. Accustomed to playing scenes out
or structuring films around a series of slapstick gags, it must have pained him
to have so many quick cuts. In many, he’s just getting started before some
character yells at him to knock it off.
The other noteworthy scene, or should I say half a scene, comes in the latter third
of the film during a musical number that strains too hard to be different. In
it, Eilers comes out and shows off her tap dancing skills, and my, aren’t they
impressive! And what joy she displays! It made me long for a full-fledged
musical with her in the leading role.
This is really all I can recommend of Doughboys, for even though the rest of it has moments of comic
promise, the rug is pulled out from under them far too quickly for them to
resonate. One of them involves Keaton hearing a bugle call while taking a
shower. In the very next scene, there he is standing for inspection wearing
very little other than his suspenders. And wouldn’t you know it, just at that
moment Mary arrives hoping to see him in his army duds. The moment is rife with
comic potential, yet all Keaton is given to do is hide and then exit as rapidly
as possible. Mission accomplished, I guess. However, the scene feels rushed,
and it produces little in the way of laughter other than a mild, polite
chuckle, followed by an instinctive shaking of the head. In other words, the
scene is a perfect summation of the film and the disappointment it is likely to
inspire in its viewers. Buster Keaton deserved so much better. (on DVD from
Warner Archives)
