The Balloonatic Trivia Quiz

Answer: Women

Buster waits outside for the young woman who goes in after he came out -- only to have her come down the slide and land on top of him. Next he gallantly lays his jacket down over a puddle for a young woman, only to have a man in a car drive right over his jacket to pick the girl up.

He gets in a boat ride, The Old Mill, with yet another woman -- only to emerge from the tunnel rather battered and beaten up. Clearly Buster's real troubles are not inside the House of Trouble.

Answer: The bottom drops out of the gondola and leaves the balloonist on the ground.

Buster fastens the pennant only to find himself aloft. He climbs down into the gondola -- and nearly falls out through the missing bottom. But Buster takes his airborne fate with great aplomb, and sets up housekeeping in his new high-rise wicker home.

Answer: He shoots the balloon while duck hunting.

Buster dangles duck decoys from the gondola, settles in with his rifle, and waits. When he spots a bird of some sort roosting among his balloon lines, he fires, and blows a hole in the bag. The balloon falls to earth, landing in a tree.

Answer: His basket is open at the bottom so the fish fall out as fast as he picks them up.

The defective wicker basket echoes the defective wicker gondola of Buster's balloon.

Disgusted when he discovers the source of his fish-less state, Buster starts stuffing fish in his pockets and down inside his wading boots. Then he sticks one inside his shirt and ends up doing a bit of a dance as it flops down into his pants.

Meanwhile, unbeknown to Buster, expert fisherman Phyllis has caught a nice fish for her breakfast. She changes into her bathing suit and prepares for a morning swim.

Phyllis Haver started her film career as a Mack Sennett Bathing Beauty in 1915. She was in 106 films, sometimes in small uncredited parts, during her 15-year career. "The Balloonatic" was the only Keaton film she played in.

Answer: Phyllis dives into the stream and lands on Buster.

As can be expected from a Mack Sennett Bathing Beauty, Phyllis spends some time in her bathing suit, stretching and showing off her figure and so forth. Finally she dives in and lands on Buster.

Actually, if you watch frame-by-frame you can see that Phyllis dives over Buster, pushing off his shoulders with her hands to keep their bodies from slamming painfully together. Buster ducks into the water as her hands touch him. It's a simple but very effective illusion, no doubt augmented by a bit of under-cranking by cameraman Elgin Lessley.

Answer: Phyllis tries to rescue Buster when his canoe capsizes.

We see one of Phyllis's few less-than-stellar moments when she tries to lasso Buster as he drifts by. When she finally reaches the canoe, it seems as if Buster has drowned, but he appears -- underneath her in the water. He stands up and knocks her off her feet. Her reaction to Buster is more tempered this time. She was angry and chased him off the first time they crossed paths. This time she just looks disgusted.

Inexplicably, the river is now flowing left to right past Phyllis's camp site; when she and Buster met, it had been flowing right to left.

Answer: She is cornered by a bull.

There's no explanation as to what the bull is doing in the middle of the woods. Buster tries to shoot it, but since he has dragged his rifle through the river, all it shoots is water -- which is a good thing, since the only thing he manages to hit is Phyllis. She finally gets tired of waiting for rescue and just wrestles the bull to the ground herself.

It's ironic to see Buster Keaton playing such a klutz of a city slicker, since he was quite the avid outdoors-man himself, and a skilled hunter and fisherman.

Answer: He ends up between two bears.

Buster's klutziness is evidently rubbing off on Phyllis, since she is the one who gets pinned by a tree. She manages to extricate herself while Buster deals with the bears. He only sees the one that's in front of him, and raises his rifle by the barrel to club it on the head. This discharges the gun, shooting and killing the bear that was behind him.

Buster dangles off a cliff in "Moonshine" (1918) and steps in a bear trap in "The General" (1926).

Answer: He plays his ukulele.

Leaning back across Phyllis's lap, Buster plays and sings, and earns himself a kiss.

Keaton was an accomplished ukulele player, and it shows up in several of his films, including "Steamboat Bill Jr." (1928) and "Pest from the West" (1939).

Answer: The canoe is suspended from Buster's balloon.

This is one of the few special effects Keaton shot using miniatures, as the canoe, now attached to the balloon in place of the gondola, sails off. Buster leans back against Phyllis for a final kiss.