what be the most harrowing movie ever make . the gynaecological nightmare of cry and whisper . the acid psychodramas of fassbinder . the discomfit black comedy of last house on the left . i be sure for that portion of the film love public that tie their mast to the good ship buster keaton and there be only one answer any one of his sound film . i do not know what flay my soul more poignantly in this movie the grounding of keaton intricate and expansive physical art to humdrum slapstick while the painful hesitation of this master filmmaker with dialogue not that he hasn not a lovely and comic voice and or that he can not make dialogue funny while it just that the studio do not seem to have give him enough take and and so he seem to be try to remember his line before he deliver and which only make him keaton and not his character and look silly while or be it the humiliation of see keaton catch up in a tawdry sex farce and when he have give u some of the rich account of romantic frustration in film . no and i know what be most disturbing have to watch buster keaton and cinema great comedian and sit aside to observe jimmy durante do his schtick . it be horror such a this that get yer dante compose yer inferno . mgm seem to have get the curious idea that the best way to adapt keaton to sound be to turn him into a marx brother and complete with verbal pedantry and elaborate and tedious clowning and shambolic slapstick and theatrical setting and triumph through chaos and and thelma todd . keaton be just not that sort of comic and and where groucho malicious tongue and gleeful opportunism might just have make this plot work and buster socially inept professor can not and he be too studied and predictable . what buster need be to be allow experiment like lang in m and or rene clair while he would never have try to hold back the tide like chaplin . when a film like the general be allude to mess about with train the loss become even more apparent . and the thing be and in patch amid the flat direction and the film isn not all that bad there be an excellent jolt when a camera on the bus leave keaton alone at a railway station while and the denouement and if hardly original and be at least lively than what go before . there be something almost endear about the way keaton slow down a plot that need all the zip it can get . there be a film in here about loneliness and emotionally paralyse order and the numbing effect of education etc . and struggle to get out . the best way to appreciate this film be to watch not the narrative of professor tz post and but of emasculated genius buster keaton and trap in a prison of mediocrity and confound by new technology and mock by a malevolent fate ( in this case the studio ) and retain a stoical grace . look at like that and it become a kind of masterpiece .