Keaton’s 18th two-reeler offers, almost immediately, an unusual closeup of his face illuminated by a lit match and surrounded by darkness. As we only later discover that our hero is inside a funhouse called ‘The House of Trouble’, this dream-like opening sequence filled with strange, mysterious creatures follows one of Keaton’s principles of comedy: “create a genuine thrill and then relieve the tension with surprise”. With a sudden change of set worthy of the inside-the-screen sequence of Sherlock Jr., Buster is accidentally whisked away on a flying balloon, only to get stranded in an untamed and hostile environment where his satisfying interplay with Phyllis Haver (not just a pretty prop but a girl on a solo fishing trip who wrestles an angry bull to the ground) drives the story through a series of hilarious ordeals. Although practically devoid of a real plot, The Balloonatic provides more than a sparkle of Keaton’s unique cinematic vision. In the balloon sequence he plays his usual device of investing the inanimate with life in reverse, slipping his body through the basket and becoming part of it: “We are looking at a monstrous man-balloon: Keaton’s legs, the basket as torso, the balloon itself as head”, wrote Walter Kerr. “The image could be Bosch, all too easily Dali; it is simply Keaton, behaving normally in his very special milieu, availing himself of the probable absurdities of a form in which men and matter merge”.

Cecilia Cenciarelli

For the restoration of The Balloonatic seven elements – six preserved by the Cohen Film Collection and one by the Harvard Film Archive – were inspected, digitised and compared. The reconstruction used three of them, all from Cohen’s film vaults in Ohio. A fifth-generation dupe positive (CO_ COLU_PDP_RR05) has been selected as main element for the restoration. A second element, a fifth-generation safety positive print, has been used to complete two shots missing from reel two. Intertitles have been reconstructed using a fourth-generation safety dupe negative CO_COLU_PDN_SEC_022.