An aging doorman is forced to face the scorn of his friends, neighbors and society after being fired from his prestigious job at a luxurious hotel.
“Now we turn to a masterpiece. In The Navigator Buster Keaton works with practically the same gag as Hope’s duel. Adrift on a ship which he believes is otherwise empty, he drops a lighted cigarette. A girl finds it. She calls out and he hears her; each then tries to find the other.
“[Harold Lloyd] tried at first to offset Chaplin’s influence and establish his own individuality by playing Chaplin’s exact opposite, a character named Lonesomz Luke who wore clothes much too small for him and whose gestures were likewise as unChaplinesque as possible.
“American cinema seemed to achieve perfection at that time: perfection of the cut, perfection of the stitching, perfection of the fabric. There is not haute couture only in Paris, just as there is not ‘haute production’ only in Hollywood.