The Cameraman (1928) on Netflix
Passed19281h 16mComedyDramaFamily
Buster, a sidewalk tintype photographer in New York City, falls for Sally, a secretary at MGM Newsreels. He buys a camera and tries to join the newsreel cameramen to win her over.
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- Netflix4.5/5
- IMDb8.0/1014,785 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes100%
Trailer
Plot summary
Buster makes his living on the sidewalks of New York City, taking tintype portraits. He falls for Sally, a secretary at MGM Newsreels, and spends his savings on a used film camera, hoping the company will hire him as a cameraman. Harold, a cameraman who is also interested in Sally, mocks the plan. Sally encourages Buster and tells him to film whatever he comes across. His first rolls turn out badly, ruined by double exposures and too much light. She still agrees to a Sunday out with him, and they go to a public pool, where his mishaps multiply. Afterward Harold drives Sally home while Buster, in the rumble seat, gets soaked in the rain. The next day Sally passes him a tip about something big about to happen in Chinatown.
Cast
- Louise Keatonas Swimmer in Swimming Pool
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Cameraman (1928)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The Cameraman was Buster Keaton's first film under his MGM contract, and the next year the studio refused to let him keep creative control over his pictures, causing damage to his career he never really recovered from; Keaton called the move "the worst mistake of my career."
- 22 writers were assigned to The Cameraman, but Buster Keaton persuaded MGM's head of production Irving Thalberg to throw out the script and let him film it his own way.
- The Cameraman was thought to be a lost film after the 1965 MGM vault fire, but a near-complete print was found in Paris in 1968 and a higher-quality one in 1991; only three minutes are still missing.
- The Cameraman later inspired part of the 1950 comedy Watch the Birdie, with Buster Keaton serving as a gagman and advisor to star Red Skelton; its dressing-room scene inspired the stateroom scene in the Marx Brothers' 1935 A Night at the Opera.
- Producer Lawrence Weingarten and Buster Keaton fought on the set of The Cameraman, and Weingarten called Keaton a child.
- MGM's writing department used The Cameraman to train new writers as a model of a "perfectly constructed comedy" for decades, long enough to wear out their print.
