What! No Beer?
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| What! No Beer? | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Edward Sedgwick |
| Starring | Buster Keaton Jimmy Durante |
| Distributed by | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
| Release date(s) | 1933 |
| Running time | 66 minutes |
| Country |  United States |
| Language | English |
| IMDb profile | |
What! No Beer? is a 1933 comedy film starring Buster Keaton and Jimmy Durante, and directed by Edward Sedgwick. The studio had also paired Keaton and Durante as a comedy team during this period in The Passionate Plumber and Speak Easily.
Mild-mannered Elmer (Keaton) and gregarious Jimmy (Durante) are two barbers who are duped by a confidence woman (Phyllis Barry) and an underworld boss (John Miljan). Elmer and Jimmy reactivate an abandoned brewery, in anticipation of the repeal of Prohibition. Their success prompts the crooks to get tough, but Elmer foils them with a truckload of beer barrels.
The filming of What! No Beer? was difficult. Since joining MGM in 1928, Keaton was not accorded the creative freedom that he had enjoyed during the silent era. By 1933 personal problems and a messy divorce were interfering with Keaton's work; he often showed up drunk or not at all for the filming of What! No Beer? He was enough of a professional (and a trained acrobat) to complete the film, doing extreme pratfalls even while visibly impaired.
A myth persists that the Keaton talkies were critical and popular failures that virtually finished Keaton's career. While it is true that these later Keaton efforts were artistically inferior to his best work, many of them were solid moneymakers. The Keaton series might have continued (MGM had already announced that Keaton and Durante would be co-starring with Jackie Cooper), but What! No Beer? turned out to be Keaton's last MGM feature, and his last starring feature in the United States. Keaton then starred in 26 short subjects, and usually played featured roles after 1941.
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