Keaton's Missing The Cameraman Scene and Other Tricks

[John Bengtson]

A missing scene from Buster Keaton’s The Cameraman contains likely the first screen appearance of the newly opened Beverly Wilshire Hotel.



and Buster’s newsreel fiasco in The Cameraman fully explained



Read all about it here - https://wp.me/p11nfB-41B

Thanks for listening - cheers, John

[Rob Farr]

I remember earlier versions of The Cameraman had the missing scene that ended abruptly as Keaton approached the hotel with his camera. More recent restorations omit that bit because it makes no sense without the payoff. I may even have that on VHS from an old pre-restoration TCM broadcast. Did the YT version have the scene in its entirety?

[Richard M Roberts]

I remember earlier versions of The Cameraman had the missing scene that ended abruptly as Keaton approached the hotel with his camera. More recent restorations omit that bit because it makes no sense without the payoff. I may even have that on VHS from an old pre-restoration TCM broadcast. Did the YT version have the scene in its entirety?

No, it doesn't, what survived in the old print (which I have) has Buster going up under the hotel awning and asking the doorman if the Admiral is coming out, then it cuts to Buster's bad newreel footage.

As I said on the nitwitvile thread years ago, I believe that this sequence was removed when MGM remade THE CAMERAMAN in 1950 as WATCH THE BIRDIE with Red Skelton as they recreate the gags from this sequence basically verbatim. Unfortunately, it was probably never returned to the negative after that, who thought anyone would want to reprint an old Buster Keaton film back then.


RICHARD M ROBERTS

[John Bengtson]

It makes sense to cut "the Admiral is coming" scene altogether if the surviving prints don't contain the payoff joke. But, as mentioned, this may have been the hotel's debut screen appearance, so a bit of LA history is lost along with the missing footage.