THE SAPHEAD (1921) B/W "silent" 78m dir: Herbert Blache

w/Buster Keaton (feature film debut), William H. Crane, Carol Holloway, Edward Connelly, Irving Cummings, Beulah Booker

From Leonard Maltin's 1999 Movie & Video Guide: "... a pleasant but conventional plot about a wealthy boob whose impending marriage is imperiled when he's framed for a stock swindle." Adapted from the play, The Henrietta, by Bronson Howard which premiered in 1887.

From Rudi Blesh's Keaton: "The story gave Buster Keaton a character type he would use in later features of his own. The Lamb [Keaton's character, "Saphead, alias Bertie the Lamb"] is the prototype of the penniless Southern gentleman in Our Hospitality, the dapper young detective in the dream sequence of Sherlock Jr., the wealthy scion of Battling Butler, and the college-spoiled son of an old riverboat captain (Ernest Torrence) in Steamboat Bill Jr. Bertie is also substantially duplicated --- with many an added Keaton twist --- in the Rollo Treadway of The Navigator.

"The Metro film immediately ran into trouble. The original Bertie, Stuart Robson, claiming ownership of the book, held up release until October. By then, Buster had made two more two-reelers of his own. When production of The Saphead dragged on into summer, Buster began concurrent work on his own. All summer he shuttled back and forth across the street from Metro to Keaton, changing costumes and characters as he ran.

"Finally, The Saphead opened at the Capitol in New York. Feature-length films got top program placement and commanded reviews that shorts could not ordinarily elicit. The film immediately invited comparisons between its new star and the well-established Chaplin, whose sensational hit with Jackie Coogan [THE KID] was running at the same time. Robert Sherwood wrote in the old Life:

It is just as well that Charlie Chaplin did not wait any longer before releasing The Kid, for otherwise he might have awakened one bright morning to find that his crown had passed to the pensive brow of Buster Keaton.

The New York Times critic wrote:

With Mr. Keaton as its center of gravity The Saphead becomes one of gayest comedies of the season --- for this Keaton gravity is a bubbling source of merriment.

"The frozen face, the Keaton mask, born in the medicine show and vaudeville, had scored immediately, even in the [Fatty] Arbuckle days, with movie audiences. Although in those days many players overacted flagrantly to overcome (they thought) the silence of the early films, Buster took the opposite course. His face went with silence. Its motionlessness and the films' soundlessness compounded each other. Its immobility commanded attention, its expression compelled sympathy. Fundamentally bewildered yet completely matter-of-fact, it was a basic human portrait. It stared unblinking and unsurprised as mad mishaps and mad triumphs unfolded like marginal notes by Mark Twain. There was something humble about that face --- even when the body put on airs, as in The Saphead, and strutted in the fine clothes of the millionaire's son."