I have never seen an actual vaudeville show, but I am very interested in it because I grew up watching The Three Stooges (whose backgrounds were Vaudeville and whose TV shows also had Vaudeville features) and the Looney Tunes (where there are several episodes featuring actual vaudeville performances). Also, all display very physical acting techniques.
So when I watched Keaton’s films, I was very excited to see his legendary physical acting.
Keaton had to use his body to a more exaggerated extent because his films were silent. There were several scenes that really stayed in my mind and caught my attention. These scenes display Keaton’s excellent acrobatic and comedic talent: The scene where Keaton plays a number of roles in the orchestra, the scene where he is playing a monkey, the motorcycle scene, the kissing scene in the projector room, the train chase scene, the scene where he is hanging from a water pipe, and many others.
I was fortunate to watch 3 of his films because of my Film History class, namely The Playhouse, The GEneral, and Sherlock Jr. All his films shown in class had very simple stories; the most complex being the historical film The General. But it is in the simplicity of the stories where Keaton’s complicated acrobatics and comedic talent shine! Yes, Keaton does not display acting talent in his films. He probably wouldn’t’ survive the Hollywood of today; where everything is close-up and organic acting and emotions are what critics and audiences expect. In fact, his face does not even show one ounce of emotion, being called the great stone face of his time. In Sunset Boulevard, he is one of the retired silent film actors who couldn’t transition to sound cinema invited to Desmond’s house.
What made Keaton extremely successful was not his acting abilities, but his ability to make the audience laugh using his signature face and his incredible stunts.