Commentary: In Praise of Buster Keaton, Silent Films and Fred Beeks

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Last Saturday was another delightful evening of entertainment at the Fox Theatre. As you were probably aware through notices in this newspaper, the occasion was another evening with Buster Keaton, along with the outstanding organ accompaniment played by the composer, Fred Beeks. 

As I said to his wife, Eva, after the movie, “Who needs dialog with such wonderful music setting the mood of each scene?” That old pipe organ never sounded better than when it’s being played by Mr. Beeks. Of course the film it accompanied was no slouch, either. 

I hope it wasn’t the last of the series. An old love story or drama would probably seem phony by today’s standards, though, but good comedy never goes out of style.

I’m too young to remember silent films first-hand, but, nonetheless I seem to have inherited the mantle from Gordon Aadland as spokesman for the ancient ones. I don’t know just how old you have to be to qualify, but let me just say that if you can remember “Mister Sandman” as sung by The Chordettes — and can sing along with it — you’re too antiquated to be out driving alone at night.

By the way, have you noticed, you rather mature folks, that there don’t seem to be any comedians left anymore who do impressions of various well-known figures, mostly movie stars, politicians or Lawrence Welk? It’s this writer’s opinion that it’s because there are very few people around anymore who are distinctive enough to imitate. 

Our ever-growing society of cookie-cutters is responsible for another attack of blandness.   It wasn’t difficult back “in the old days” to tell Jimmy Stewart from Edward G. Robinson or Jimmy Durante from W.C. Fields. Bette Davis was easily recognized. You wouldn’t mistake her for, say, Katherine Hepburn or Marilyn Monroe. F.D.R. was an easy one to mimic.

As far as I can remember, the last person to make a really successful career out of sounding like other people was Rich Little. Oh, Frank Gorshin was pretty good, too. Those two were a little classier than the others; they were called “impressionists.” To repeat myself, our entertainers and politicians, and we ourselves, have become a nation of cookie cutters. Very few have the guts to be different anymore.



Really old Northwesterners will remember how easy it was to imitate Seattle baseball sportscaster Leo Lassen. All you had to do was say “back, Back, BACK” with increasing excitement.

May I change the subject again? I think that among the saddest words spoken by mankind are something on the order of, “Oh, I’ve already read that,” or how about, “Oh, that’s just a rerun. I watched it years ago.” If a book or a program was good enough to hold your attention years ago, why shouldn’t it do so again?

I still enjoy watching “As Time Goes By” starring Judi Dench and Geoffrey Palmer. It ran for 10 years, and I’ve watched the entire series at least five times now. If you’re a fan of the show you’ll know what I mean when I say that Rocky should have married Mrs. Bale. Those last episodes would have been much more believable, and enjoyable, without the forced humor of his marriage to Madge.

A funny thing about that series is that I thought there was no canned laughter used in the beginning. It was there, though, merely understated in a typical British way. It was only in later episodes that someone from American TV must have gotten control of the volume knob, and it became intrusive and obtrusive.

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Bill Moeller is a former entertainer, mayor, bookstore owner, city council member, paratrooper and pilot living in Centralia. He can be reached at bookmaven321@comcast.net.