Steamboat Bill Jr. (Reisner, 1928) #TSPDT 327

An outcast son tries to help his father save his decrepit steamboat company to survive, but falls in love with the feuding company bosses daughter.

Another one from Keaton, which I enjoyed enormously. This one feels definitively more mature than the earlier ones, especially in the storytelling department. Obviously, also the sets and effects were outright enormous, but for me the father-son story prevailed.

As in all the other Keaton films, there are some breathtaking life-size visual effects that still look stunning and quite up to the job even today. I really wondered how they made the storm, but I've read that they used aircraft engines. Must have been a hell of a shoot, I would love to see the making-of!

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