Most moviegoers place Buster Keaton among the top three silent-film comedians, alongside Charles Chaplin and Harold Lloyd, and there are strong arguments for putting Keaton at the top of the triumvirate, especially in the pictures he both starred in and directed. But by the middle 1930s the glory days of movies like Sherlock, Jr. (1924), and The Cameraman (1928) were long gone, and it's a tribute to his tenacity that he kept on working whenever possible, despite alcoholism and depression, until his death in 1966.

Keaton made Streamlined Swing and Hollywood Handicap in 1938, when he was working for MGM as an idea man and occasional short-film director. The best asset of both movies is The Original Sing Band, a group of ten black musicians whose specialty was making the sounds of jazz instruments-trombones, saxophones, and so forth-with their voices alone.

At the beginning of the nine-minute Streamlined Swing they're entertaining the (exclusively white) passengers on a train, and as they pull into the station a listener informs them that he's a millionaire and wants to give them the railroad car as a gift. They take it off the tracks, turn it into a successful diner, get busted by the police for stealing the car-the "millionaire" was just a lunatic with delusions of grandeur-and are instantly rescued by the railroad's president, who gives them the place for real. Credit for the original screenplay belongs to Marion Mack, who played the heroine of The General, the masterly Civil War comedy Keaton had made in 1927. It's a pity that the dialogue, penned by John W. Krafft, is geared to cutesy phrases spoken in trite African-American dialect by the band's obviously talented members.

Hollywood Handicap is a tad longer, at ten minutes, and slightly more ambitious, promising a "Galaxy of Stars" in the cast. This time the Original Sing Band members are working at a stable and amusing its (exclusively white) patrons by playing swing-type jazz on regular instruments. A generous horse owner gives them a thoroughbred called Suzy Q, advising them to enter the filly in a race. To raise the capital they'll need, the musicians ask a horse auctioneer to sell their instruments, then wish they hadn't when a profitable performing gig comes their way. This gives their leader a "powerful idea," to quote the movie's most frequently repeated phrase, and before long they're imitating instruments with their voices and wowing their (exclusively white) listeners once again. The outcome is less upbeat at the Hollywood Derby, when the band cheerleads for Suzy Q by singing to her from the sidelines; instead of running to the front of the pack, she stops in her tracks and dances to the music! But things turn out fine when a circus-movie producer offers a lucrative contract to the gifted horse's owners.

Keaton's distinctive genius is missing behind the camera, and the "Galaxy of Stars" turns out to be a string of quick close-ups - Mickey Rooney, Dorothy Lamour, Al Jolson, Ruby Keeler, and on and on - in the Santa Anita racetrack scene. This said, though, both Hollywood Handicap and Streamlined Swing are worth viewing for the pleasures of The Original Sing Band alone. Their memory deserves to stay alive.

Streamlined Swing (1938)
Producer: Louis Lewyn
Director: Buster Keaton
Screenplay: John W. Krafft, Marion Mack
Music: Will Hudson, Irving Mills
Cast: The Original Sing Band (Themselves).
BW-9m.

Hollywood Handicap (1938)
Producer: Louis Lewyn
Director: Buster Keaton
Cast: The Original Sing Band (Themselves), Charles Ruggles, Mickey Rooney, Al Jolson, Bing Crosby, Dorothy Lamour.
BW-10m.

by Mikita Brottman and David Sterritt