The Boat
About The Boat
Buster Keaton has built a boat, Damfino, inside his house. When he tows it out with a Model T, the house falls down. At the launch he loses the car, and the hull slides off the ramp and sinks. Once it is afloat, folding funnels and a mast let it pass under the low bridges of the Venice canals. At sea he nails up a picture and springs a leak, then drills the hull to let the water out and gets a geyser. His Morse call, d-a-m-f-i-n-o, is read by the operator as "damn if I know" and ignored. The family climbs into a bathtub used as a dinghy, finds they are standing in shallow water, and wades to a dark beach. His wife asks where they are. He mouths the answer.
Cast & crew
More about The Boat
Keaton and Edward F. Cline wrote and directed it. Joseph M. Schenck produced. First National released it. Elgin Lessley photographed it. Technical director Fred Gabourie had two 35-foot boats built, one meant to float and one to sink. The launch gag, shot at Balboa Bay off Newport Beach, took three days: pig iron, a breakaway stern, and drilled holes all failed to take the hull under, until a tug pulled it down on a cable run through a stern pulley. Virginia Fox was first cast as the wife and was replaced by Sybil Seely, who had played the wife in One Week.
Themes
Making
Gabourie and Keaton designed the mast and funnels so they could fold flat for the canal bridges. The sink was not a studio tank: a tug on Balboa Bay dragged the weighted hull under after the boat refused to go down on its own.
Reviews
A 1921 review in The Washington Post called the short a classic and joked that Keaton must have asked the Navy for every mishap that can hit a boat.
Look
Elgin Lessley shot the collapse of the house, the Venice canal bridges, and the three-day launch on Balboa Bay. An undercrank was ruled out for the sinking because it would have made the water jump.
Technique
Two full-size hulls were built. The one that had to sink was finally pulled under by a tug, a stern pulley, and an anchor cable, after about 1,600 pounds of pig iron and a breakaway stern failed to do it.
Preservation
The short is in the public domain. Complete copies circulate, including the Internet Archive transfer.
Notes
- Sybil Seely plays the wife, uncredited. Cline plays the man who takes the radio call, also uncredited. Both children wear small pork-pie hats.
- Wikipedia dates the release 10 November 1921. Wikidata also lists 20 November 1921 and 6 February 1922.
- Keaton thought of joining One Week and The Boat into one four-reeler about the same couple. That cut was never made.
- The International Buster Keaton Society calls itself The Damfinos, after the boat.
- In My Wonderful World of Slapstick, Keaton wrote that the pork-pie hat floating at the end made audiences think he was walking just under the water.
- The film is in the public domain in the United States.
Scenes
- The boat will not fit through the door, and the house comes down as the Model T pulls it out.
- The hull leaves the ramp and goes straight under.
- Keaton spells Damfino in Morse. The operator hears a shrug and hangs up.
- The family steps out of the bathtub and wades onto a beach they cannot name.
Influenced by
- One Week (1920), which Keaton treated as the same couple's story
Also available
- Internet Archive (TheBoat)
Quotes
Where are we?
Damn if I know
