Having seen a small handful of Buster Keaton's talkies, I personally don't believe the actor is at fault for his failure to stay popular during the talkie era. I don't even necessarily think it's the films themselves, because I like several of them (The Passionate Plumber, in particular, is one of my favorite Keaton films). I just think audiences at the time felt they were old fashioned relics, and thus the movies have faded from memory. That said, Free and Easy isn't one of Keaton's better movies. It has its moments, and Keaton himself doesn't do anything wrong, but it's poorly cobbled together and, with the primitive sound recording, it's difficult to understand the dialogue (a recurring problem when watching the talkies of this year). The film offers a cool view of Hollywood at the time. Keaton plays a small-town manager who is accompanying a talent contest winner (Anita Page) and her overprotective mother (Trixie Friganza) to Hollywood. All three of them immediately get lost in the bustle of Hollywood. We see a lot of cool, behind-the-scenes type stuff, and meet stars like Jackie Coogan and director Fred Niblo. The problem is, little of it is funny, and there are a lot of lame musical numbers inserted (although Keaton does have one killer, comic dance near the end). There are some very funny moments, though, like when a director is supposedly giving Keaton simple directions on acting, but they keep getting more and more complex (the look on his face speaks more clearly than his voice ever could). This was Buster's first talkie vehicle, and of course it was a flop.
Review of Free and Easy
