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Buster Keaton on Snopes.com

Posted: Wed Jun 16, 2021 11:40 am
by silentfilm
This week the fact-checking site snopes.com added an article asking Did Buster Keaton Perform This Dangerous Train Stunt? It is not about the film-ending train crash from The General (1927), although they touch on that, but about him clearing the tracks of railroad ties meant to stop his train.

Re: Buster Keaton on Snopes.com

Posted: Thu Jun 17, 2021 11:21 am
by Daniel Eagan
Long way to go to say he might have used prop ties.

Re: Buster Keaton on Snopes.com

Posted: Sat Jun 19, 2021 11:15 am
by Zepfanman
There's a quote in that Snopes article mentioning the boulder scene in Seven Chances. In case you need a reminder how insane those stunts where, he's the 4-minute segment:

Re: Buster Keaton on Snopes.com

Posted: Sat Jun 19, 2021 12:11 pm
by Jim Roots
But my understanding is that most of those boulders were papier-mache. Not all of them, but quite a few.

He does get hit by one of them, which, if it were real, would have either sent him flying or squashed him like a bug. It's not an obvious hit, but it is visible in the finished film.

Jim

Re: Buster Keaton on Snopes.com

Posted: Sat Jun 19, 2021 2:19 pm
by Paul Penna
Jim Roots wrote:
Sat Jun 19, 2021 12:11 pm
But my understanding is that most of those boulders were papier-mache. Not all of them, but quite a few.

He does get hit by one of them, which, if it were real, would have either sent him flying or squashed him like a bug. It's not an obvious hit, but it is visible in the finished film.

Jim
Yeah, you don't usually see boulders bouncing around like basketballs in nature.

Re: Buster Keaton on Snopes.com

Posted: Tue Jun 29, 2021 8:47 pm
by silentfilm
And Buster Keaton makes another fact-checking website, and Jeff Rapsis' website helps them out...

https://factly.in/edited-video-from-a-m ... rst-train/