Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928): watch the full film free, legally

Bill Jr. comes home by train

Steamboat Bill, Jr. is a 1928 American silent comedy starring Buster Keaton as William Canfield Jr. Charles Reisner directed, and Carl Harbaugh received the story credit. Ernest Torrence plays William “Steamboat Bill” Canfield Sr., Marion Byron plays Kitty King, Tom McGuire is John James King, Tom Lewis is Tom Carter, Ford West is the barber, and Joe Keaton plays the coiffure. Released by United Artists, it was the final film made by Keaton’s independent production team and its gag writers.

The title came from Arthur Collins’s popular 1911 recording of the 1910 song “Steamboat Bill.” Keaton, who had directed or co-directed many earlier pictures, was an uncredited co-director on this one. It became his last film for United Artists. He subsequently moved to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, where he made The Cameraman and Spite Marriage before the studio removed his creative control.

Bill Sr. owns and captains the Stonewall Jackson, a paddle steamer that has seen better days. His business is threatened by the King, a new vessel owned by the wealthy J.J. King. A telegram tells Bill Sr. that his son will arrive on the 10 am train after completing his studies in Boston. The two have not seen each other for many years. King’s daughter Kitty also comes home from college.

At the station, Bill Sr. is disappointed by his slight and awkward son, who wears a foppish beret, a pencil moustache, and carries a ukulele. He sends Bill Jr. to a barber to have the moustache removed. There he encounters Kitty, whom he knew at college. Both fathers oppose the developing romance. Bill Jr. secretly boards the King at night, and Bill Sr. buys him a ticket back to Boston. When the Stonewall Jackson is condemned as unsafe, Bill Sr. accuses King of arranging it, assaults him, and is put in jail. Bill Jr. tears up his ticket and attempts to help his father escape.

Sacramento streets in a cyclone

Production began in Sacramento, California, on July 15, 1927. Keaton had arrived there in June and spent more than $100,000 building sets, including a pier. Filming was delayed after he broke his nose in a baseball game. At the end of shooting, producer Joseph Schenck announced the dissolution of Buster Keaton Productions.

Reisner’s original concept included a flood ending. Because of the devastating 1927 Mississippi River Flood, Schenck made Keaton cut that plan. Keaton spent another $25,000 on the cyclone sequence, which used breakaway street sets and six powerful Liberty-motor wind machines. The sequence cost one-third of the film’s budget, estimated at between $300,000 and $404,282.

Keaton planned and performed his own stunts. For the cyclone scene, he was suspended from a cable attached to a crane and hurled about as if airborne. A house facade falls around Bill Jr. while he stands exactly where an open window protects him. The effect became perhaps Keaton’s best-known and most frequently imitated stunt.

The film briefly refers to Keaton’s established screen image. At the time, he had stopped wearing his trademark pork pie hat with its short, flat crown. In an early scene, Bill Jr. tries on several hats. A clothing salesman places the familiar cap on his head, but Bill Jr. quickly rejects it and tosses it away.

Failure on release, lasting influence

The film failed at the box office and drew mixed reviews on release. Variety called it “a pip of a comedy” and “one of Keaton’s best.” The Film Spectator reviewer described it as perhaps the best comedy of the year so far and urged exhibitors to pursue it. Harrison’s Reports found many situations that caused laughs, while judging the plot nonsensical. Mordaunt Hall of The New York Times called it a “gloomy comedy” and a “sorry affair.”

Rotten Tomatoes reports that 96% of 52 critics gave the film a positive rating, with an average score of 9.00 out of 10. Its critics’ consensus says that, although it is lighter on laughs than some Keaton pictures, its set pieces compensate. In 2016, the Library of Congress selected the film for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. The copyright expired in 1956.

The falling-house stunt was recreated in productions including The Goodies, MacGyver, Project A Part II, Arrested Development, Jackass Number Two, and Paddington in Peru. Steve McQueen’s 1997 work Deadpan was inspired by the scene and repeats it from multiple angles. In 2025, The Hollywood Reporter listed Steamboat Bill, Jr. as having the best stunts of 1927 to 1928.

Film details from the Wikipedia article “Steamboat Bill, Jr.”. Text adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0.