Films in Review

Saw Keaton’s #ThePaleface. Good fun. The at-the-stake part is quite astounding. ‘Midst all the comic hi-jinx we get these gravely beautiful …

… long shots: w’ the blanket parachute, & the steep hill (that would later appear so felicitously/astoundingly in Seven Chances), …

… or the whole bit w’ the bridge. Now he’s evolving into some kind of comic John Constable!

#ThePaleface. As an antical part of a wide-range of representations & self-expressions, ethnic stereotyping is probably okay…

… (i.e. Rene Clair’s #TheGhostGoesWest [1935; q.v.], in which pretty well every one gets a gleeful facewash.) …

… In the absence of that wide range/self-expression …

… it probably isn’t.

P.S., #ThePaleface. Want more gut-bustingly inaccurate comedy about Native Americans? Tex Avery, Big Heel-watha (1945; http://imdb.to/18mAxIQ).