It’s been said that MGM was where comedy went to die. Certainly that was the case with the Marx Brothers, whose final three MGM films were all abject unfunny failures. ‘Our Gang’ also suffered an ignominious end, morphing into a group of do-gooder kids who were eager to put on patriotic war-time era shows as opposed to ‘Our Gang Follies of 1938’ (in my estimation the pinnacle of Our Gang at their prime). But nobody was buried and forgotten at MGM more thoroughly than Buster Keaton. Above is an excellent doc on the subject called ‘So Funny It Hurt; Buster Keaton and MGM’. There’s terrific behind-the-scenes footage as well as some excellent comparisons of gags that Keaton did in his prime that were recycled extensively for other MGM comedians, notably Red Skelton. (If anything about Skelton can be referred to as ‘notable’). This wasn’t MGM ripping Keaton off, though. By the time Skelton was a star Keaton had sunk low enough on the show biz totem pole to be employed as a fifty dollar a week gagman and he was happy to be the re-cycler of his old stuff. Unlike most has-been movie stars though, Keaton was too modest a man to have walked away from a job like this insulted. He loved gags. He loved movies. He kept plugging away, under the impression that his silent classics had been lost–he had no prints of his own movies! Until, that is, the ubiquitous Raymond Roehouer came into his life in the 60s with copies of his silent movies. This sparked the Keaton revival and celebration of his genius that he so mightily deserved. (Roehouer also stole the copywriter on the movies, as he did from many other silent screen artists but that’s another story). Anyway, check the doc out and also go to this goldmine of a Keaton website for all kinds of Buster goodies including shorts both silent and with sound, interviews, full silent films and television appearances.