Buster Keaton: Cut to the Chase
Published by Da Capo Press
Reviewed by Leah Rae
According to Hollywood legend, it was Harry Houdini who gave Buster Keaton the name “Buster” after watching the young Keaton tumble down a flight of stairs. This myth is debunked in Marion Meade’s biography Buster Keaton: Cut to the Chase (Da Capo Press), but the magic of the early film era is intact, and graciously presented. With the trained eye of a filmmaker, Meade leads us through the life story of one of cinema’s greatest performers. She presents vivid descriptions of Keaton’s haunts, from the unclaimed land of pioneer-era America, to the dingy vaudeville halls, to the staggering wealth of infant Hollywood. Meade not only condenses Keaton’s remarkable life into three hundred pages; she also infuses her work with the same near-mystical aura that surrounded the great stone face himself.
