Starring Buster Keaton, Kathryn McGuire, Frederick Vroom
Produced by Buster Keaton Productions
Rollo is rich and bored with his life. Looking for something to do, he decides to get married. Today. He makes all of the arrangements, including purchasing tickets on an ocean liner for the honeymoon. Then, it's a (really) short trip to ask his intended.
Her response: "Certainly not!"
Dejected, Rollo enjoys a "long" walk home and decides to take the trip anyway. Coincidentally, Rollo's girlfriend is the daughter of a ship owner. Spies have been sent to prevent the ship, The Navigator, from being sold to their enemies.
Both Rollo and his girlfriend accidentally end up on The Navigator when the spies cut the ship adrift without a crew. At first, the two are unaware of their circumstances or that anyone else is on board. Then, two people who have never set foot in a kitchen have to figure out how to brew coffee and boil eggs. They fail miserably.
Can these two get their act together and possibly find love? And can they survive (gulp) cannibals?
The Navigator is another Buster Keaton joint and compared to his other release from this year (Sherlock Jr.), it pales in comparison. The thread holding the film together is thinner than a female lead on the CW and exists more as an excuse for some very episodic comedy.
Some of it works. Rollo gets in his chauffeured car in the beginning to propose, the car does a U-turn and stops so Rollo can enter the home directly across the street. After the rejection he decides a long walk will do him good, so he walks back across the street as his driver makes another U-turn to return to the house.
I did enjoy the series of ropes and pulleys the stranded couple finally employ to cook their breakfast was clever and funny. When Buster dons a diving suit to make an underwater repair, he uses a lobster to clip some wires, grabs a swordfish to duel another swordfish and washes and dries his hands. All of which elicited a smile.
There are small moments that make me smile. A mysterious gust of wind keeps knocking off Rollo's hat, but he always has another at the ready. When he is donning the diving suit, he is smoking a cigarette. The girl secures the helmet and poor Rollo can't breathe as the suit fills with smoke. His reaction is priceless.
There are other moments that feel like they should work, but never quite come together. When the couple are first on the ship, they hear but don't see each other and begin chasing each other around, just missing seeing each other. It's the same thing over and over and it only becomes visually interesting toward the end of the sequence.
When they first attempt to make a meal and fail, the jokes are pretty obvious. The girl doesn't know that coffee beans need to be ground. Buster uses seawater instead of real water. He attempts to open a can with a cleaver. It all feels like something is missing to get the laugh under the ideas.
The cannibal sequence feels like a complete waste. When the natives attempt to board The Navigator on one of the ladders, Buster grabs an axe and cuts the ladder off. And when they attempt to climb another... he grabs an axe and cuts it off. It's not thrilling or funny. It's just repetitive. The resolution is the definition of deus ex machina.
The Navigator feels like the production crew found a boat first, then started trying to write the jokes around it. As a movie, it doesn't quite work. As a series of gags? Some land, some don't. However, in the end, it's Buster Keaton. And you can always do worse than give him an hour of your time.
**1/2 out of *****
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