After a hiatus of 17 years Buster Keaton returns on the small screen, in two acts exclusively for the eyes of the people living in California, as this was televised on KTTV. Keatons is reviving the dead-pan pantomime that made him one of the greatest of the silent movie comics.
Keatons has not been starred in a movie since 1933, but now (in 1950 - my annotation) at the age of 54 he is taking pratfalls on a bare floor that other comics wouldn't try on a pile of marshamllows. Like Ed Wynn, who first introduced Keaton as a gues star on his own show in december 1949, Keaton is enthusiastic about TV. He feels that it captures some of the movies' early gusto and is jsut right for spontaneous clowning.
To play Beau Brummell in one of his television skits, Keaton tries on various outlandish wigs. Scene was enacted as if Keaton were looking in a mirror.
A wild and wooly wig is tried on by Keaton in misguided effort to assume a rugged, romantic aspect. Lace blouse is part of Beau Brummell getup.
Final indignity is suffered by Keaton when he is laced into a corset to improve his figure. The corset was so tight he could now walk, had to be carried.
Trying to help in TV studio skit, Keaton does variations on one of his classic old movie routines, coming to the rescue of a propman with a hatrack.
Disaster overtakes him when hatrack begins to slip from under the plank and Buster is left miserably supporting its full weight on his head.
Tumult and confusion beset him when somebody calls his name. He obediently abandons his project as plank collapses with the helpless propman.
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