Steamboat Bill, Jr. is a 1928 silent comedy film starring Buster Keaton. Released by United Artists, the film is the last product of Keaton’s independent production team and set of gag writers. It was not a box-office success and became the last picture Keaton made for United Artists. Keaton ended up moving to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer where he made one last film in his trademark style, The Cameraman, before his creative control was taken away by the studio.
Charles Reisner directed the film, and the credited story writer was Carl Harbaugh, although Keaton wrote the script and publicly called Harbaugh useless but “on the payroll”. The film, named after a popular Arthur Collins 1911 song, “Steamboat Bill”, also featured Ernest Torrence, Marion Byron, and Tom Lewis. In 2016, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress.
By Charles Reisner and Buster Keaton (YouTube) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
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