College is just one of the three Buster Keaton movies I have ever seen. and in this old tale of boy-gets-girl, you can truly see how Keaton was masterful talent in showing AND pantomiming comedy. In short, this is an old tale taken from countless myths and narratives from millennia back, that tells the tale of an unlikely lad that falls (perhaps wrongly so) for a girl that is perhaps outside his class and/or possibilities. The antagonist humorously and recklessly does any and all things he thinks the girl in question would love him for! To include football, rowing, tack and field and more. He problem is, is that he's a bit of an intellect and a nerd. The opening of the movie even shows him denouncing such things as athletics as ridiculous and silly. Nonetheless he tries his hardest, and actually does fair in some of his sporting endeavors. AND he get's the girl at the end. Fun tale. As a father though, I'm not sure if I would encourage such a stance like this on winning relationships! There's a better route to take.

In California, Ronald (Buster Keaton) graduates from high school as he receives the honor medal. Jeff Brown is the popular star athlete who has spend 7 years in school. Ronald makes a speech on the 'Curse of the Athletics' that entrances the teacher but the only person left in the audience is his mother. He's infatuated with Mary Haynes and follows her to athletic centric Clayton college. The dean wants him to be a scholastic star but he keeps trying to be an athletic star to impress Mary.Keaton does do blackface in this but it's not deliberately offensive. If I have any problems with this, it's that I don't buy that Mary is worth the trouble. It's simply a given that she's a dreamgirl. Also Buster Keaton is a true athlete and he can't hide that in this movie. He looks more muscle bound that many of the athletes here. He can't do nerdy convincingly in a tank top. The story struggles to fit. There are some minor funny bits. The stunts are not really that big and mostly just silly slapstick.

Bookish Buster Keaton goes to college with the intention of excelling in athletics to impress his girlfriend in this somewhat lackluster late silent film. While I found the film amusing in places, I don't think it stacks up well against his other more inventive features. Many other reviewers have compared this film unfavorably to one of Harold Lloyd's better features "The Freshman." The comparison is apt -- although sadly I wish Keaton would have followed Lloyd's lead and ended the film with a big football finish. It would have been interesting to compare Keaton's take on the sport against Lloyd's approach, or that of the Marx Brothers or even "M*A*S*H" and "The Longest Yard." The film is also hurt by Keaton's muscular build. Keaton has the body of an athlete, so his utter ineptness isn't very convincing. Also, Keaton looks a little long in the tooth to be a college freshman. (But that might actually be accurate. People often had to work for years to raise the money for college, so student bodies tended to be older.) Still, despite this quibbling, no Keaton silent feature is without its merits. The way he makes his character achieve all of the tasks in real life that he failed to achieve in the sports arena was inventive and amusing. I also really enjoyed the odd coda that quickly stepped through Buster and Anne's life (and beyond) after the joyous moment of their marriage. This film isn't the best place to start a study of Keaton, but it is still worth a look.

Let's take a look at the racism in the "coloured waiter" scene. Keaton is merely exploiting the shorthand comedic racial material of his time, imitating a black person's walk, getting in the middle of a love triangle back in the kitchen, on and on. But don't we today make fun, in stand-up comedy, of racial differences? Plenty, and nobody says boo. So why are we so judgmental?The final outcome of the episode is what counts, however: Keaton is run out of the restaurant by the coloured folk, who obviously have the power to do so. I think most people could show the scene to their young children, and, with a little explanation to accompany it, it will do little harm, and in fact may be a valuable learning experience."College" gets an "8" from me only because I'm not fond of comedians manipulating their audience into empathetic discomfort, as Keaton tends to do throughout the movie. And, no, the gags aren't all that great. Still, Keaton on auto-pilot is, well, Keaton after all.