Buster Keaton's career as a great movie comedian collapsed around the time silent pictures ceased and talkies began. But sound was not the main thing that ruined him. He made some bad career decisions, mainly involving the move from having his own small, independent movie company to becoming a contract player at M.G.M. where there were many, many people to tell him what to do. He was also drinking to excess and screwing up his private life at the same time.
He made what some feel was his last great feature, The Cameraman, in 1928. That was for M.G.M. before they began exercising real control over him. It was done with a large budget and "star" money for its star. By 1934, he was making short comedies — not even features — for Educational Pictures, a low-rent, low-run operation. It was like Rembrandt had taken a job painting designs on the backs of turtles.
This is Grand Slam Opera (1936), the best of the sixteen shorts he made for Educational. If you watch, don't compare it to Keaton's best. That's a terrible thing to do to any comedian, even Buster Keaton. But it's funnier than most of what others were doing on comparable budgets for comparable operations and it's certainly a lot better than most of what Keaton did the rest of his career to earn a paycheck. Even Educational Pictures couldn't completely squash one of the world's greatest comic talents…
