In our never-ending quest to spend all your money, we're going to recommend two new DVDs of less famous Buster Keaton material. Both have been assembled with uncommon care and consideration, and both give you a chance to see Buster when he wasn't at the top of his form (or budgets) but still with flashes of the grand Keaton style.
Buster Keaton – 65th Anniversary Collection gives you the ten short comedies he made from Columbia between 1939 and 1941. Buster's career had fallen to the point where the man who'd once made The General now had the same job (and directors) as the Three Stooges. Compared to Keaton at his peak, the shorts are disappointing. Then again, compared to Keaton at his peak, almost every comedy film is disappointing. In these shorts, you can see Buster often rise above his material and production values, and the DVD is a first-rate package with good transfers and plenty of historical extras.
Industrial Strength Keaton is a collection of Buster's oddments and leftovers — a few of his shorts, some promotional films, a number of his appearances on early television and a load of the commercials he made in the late fifties and early sixties. Some devoted Keaton fans dug all this stuff up and wrapped it in informative commentaries, and while it's no substitute for Buster's best work (this stuff), it's a nice add-on for the devotee of the man's talents.
The above titles link to Amazon pages where you can buy the two DVDs for (at the moment) $19.86 and $18.99 respectively. Note that each page currently has one of those great Amazon package deals. This one lets you buy them both at the same time for $38.85, a savings of…well, let me call up my little on-screen calculator and do the complicated math on this for you. Aha! Yes, as I expected, it's a terrific savings of absolutely nothing. Well, I guess it saves you a couple of mouse clicks. In any case, Buster is worth it.