The Making of a Comic Star

In 1920, after three years of supporting roles in Roscoe Arbuckle’s short films, Buster Keaton appeared in The Saphead. ¹ The film is distinguished by the comedian’s first feature film appearance and by his last ever smile on screen. When Bertie, the saphead of the title, is confronted by his sister Rose with a newspaper article about his presence at a gambling club raided by the police the night before, a proud smile appears on his face. Bertie is happy about the bad reputation he is acquiring, because an advice book tells him that a colorful lifestyle is the best way to impress the “Modern Girl.” Anyone familiar with Keaton’s work in the 1920s will appreciate the outstanding quality of Bertie’s smile. Throughout the decade, and indeed during his later career, Keaton, on screen and off, was known as “The Great Stone Face.” ² What is the significance, then, of Keaton’s smile in The Saphead? What does it reveal about Keaton’s changing performance strategies, or about the historical moment at which Keaton made the transition from slapstick shorts to feature-length comic dramas and from supporting roles to starring roles? And what, finally, does the neglect of this smile and this film within the voluminous Keaton literature tell us about the workings of film criticism? ³