The Navigator
Released - October, 1924 
Directed By - Donald Crisp, Buster Keaton
Starring – Buster Keaton (Rollo Treadway), Kathryn Mcguire (Betsy O’Brien), Frederick Vroom (John O’Brien).
Description – Wealthy, but lonely, Rollo Treadway witnesses a young couples loving embrace and decides to propose marriage to the also wealthy Betsy O’Brien who lives accross the street.
His plan is to marry Betsy and sail to Honolulu. However, things don’t always work out as planned. Betsy refuses Rollo’s marriage proposal and in an effort to recover from her rejection he decides to sail alone.
His emotional distraction causes Rollo to board the wrong ship. Instead of the cruise ship, he mistakenly boards ‘The Navigator’ a ship owned by Betsy’s father John O’Brien. Betsy soon also boards the ship looking for her father who seems to be missing.
Missing he is, as he has been captured by spies who have now cut the ship loose to drift away. As the ship begins to drift neither Rollo or Betsy are aware that the other is on board. Eventually, the pair find each other on the otherwise deserted ship and have a great deal of initial difficulty fending for themselves.
As time passes they are able to take care of each other onboard ship, but continue to drift for weeks until they finally come to an island. Salvation with one big problem, this island is inhabited by cannibals.
NOTABLE: The Navigator proved to be Buster Keaton’s biggest commercial success and has some of his most memorable gags.
Buster Keaton got the idea for this film when hearing of a large passenger ship that was due to be scrapped. He bought the ship for a very low price and used it as a large prop.
Tags: 1920's comedy, buster keaton, donald crisp, frederick vroom, kathryn mcguire, mgm, silent film
