The Cameraman Trivia Quiz

Answer: He is a street photographer selling tintypes.

Buster is a sidewalk tintype photographer, hawking his pictures at ten cents each -- in marked contrast to the daredevil newsreel photographers we saw in the film's opening shots.

A tintype was sort of a precursor of the Polariod instant camera. Tintypes produced an underexposed negative against a black background, which gave the illusion of a positive. They were fairly hardy photos. But by 1928, when our film is set, tintypes were fading into obsolescence. So not only is poor Buster not in a very exciting or lucrative line of work, he's a bit of a throwback.

Answer: A newsreel cameraman

In a beautiful bookend to a scene later in the movie, Buster turns to attend to something for Sally, only to have Stag (Harold Goodwin) take her away. They drive off together. But Buster's not easily thwarted when he sets a goal. He wants to find the girl, so he finds the girl. He goes where the newsreel cameramen would be -- the MGM offices.

Answer: He does sleight-of-hand with a coin.

Keaton learned a lot of tricks when traveling with his vaudeville family -- including many tricks he learned from Harry Houdini, who was a family friend. The coin trick doesn't do much to enchant Sally, portrayed so charmingly by 20-year-old Marceline Day.

Marceline, originally a child actress, was the sister of actress Alice Day. She retired from filmmaking in 1933, refusing to speak about her days before the camera.

Answer: Sally

When Buster tells Stag that he's a photographer and asks if he can get a job at MGM, Stag just scoffs at Buster and his decrepit old "cocktail shaker" of a camera. But Sally, seeing Buster's dejection, tells him that he needs his own camera to have a chance to break in. Buster rushes off in search of what he needs.

Buster's rival, Stag, is played by Harold Goodwin, who also played Buster's love rival in "College" (1927). At 6'2", Goodwin provided a striking contrast to Keaton's diminutive 5'6" frame.

Goodwin's acting career spanned much of the 20th Century, from 1915 to 1973 -- including TV work with Keaton in the 1950s.

Answer: A fire

Sally encourages Buster as much as she can, ensuring Buster that they'll buy any good film, so he sould photograph anything interesting. Buster rushes out to film the fire.

Here's where we see one of the more famous gags in the movie. Buster, hoping to get great shots of the fire, leaps aboard a passing fire engine -- which promptly returns to the fire station.

Answer: To encourage him and give him helpful tips on cranking the camera properly

Sally's kindness gives Buster hope, not just in his new career choice, but in his love life as well. He asks Sally on a date. Sally has other plans, but asks for Buster's phone number. He's so smitten that it takes him three tries to give her the phone number rather than the pencil or the notebook.

Answer: He breaks open his dime bank.

The dime bank scene wasn't in the script. Keaton complained later that he'd had to fight tooth and nail to get the bank out of the MGM prop department -- where, he said, you needed a requisition in triplicate to get a toothpick.

Fortunately for us, Keaton had managed to scrap most of the script MGM had given him, and his date with Sally provides us with many of his most memorable scenes. That said, we must still credit MGM with providing the set and crane for the gag of Buster tearing down the stairs when the phone rings.

Answer: He steals the bottoms from a woman's old-fashioned swimming suit.

Keaton pulled out all the stops for the date with Sally, including the famous dressing room scene. Unit manager Ed Brophy was a beefy fellow, perfect for what Keaton had in mind. He and Brophy crammed into a dressing room for an unrehearsed continuous shot that leaves a manhandled Buster frazzled in his skivvies. And of course, all the confusion in and around the crowded dressing room leaves Buster and a huge man wearing each other's swimming suits.

The huge man in Buster's tiny suit is Vernon Dent, who would also appear with Keaton in many of his Columbia shorts in the early 1940s. When Dent found out he'd be working with Keaton at Columbia, his wife later said, he was so excited he couldn't sleep.

Answer: He falls on her and is forced to buy her by a cop, who thinks the monkey is dead.

Buster trips over an organ grinder and flattens the monkey. The organ grinder raises a ruckus, and a cop makes Buster pay him for the apparently dead animal -- then orders him to haul it off. Buster picks the monkey up with his handkerchief and sets her atop a barrel, where she revives. She turns out to be pivotal to the rest of what happens.

Answer: To stop him from filming the Tong War

A gang leader, spotting Buster, starts sending henchmen to dispose of the little cameraman. The first one creeps up on Buster with a knife, but Josephine's intervention sends him scurrying off. More henchmen follow. At first Buster is able to distract or escape from them. He even knocks one on the head to get him out of the way of a good shot. But soon Buster ends up cornered.

Answer: The cops burst in and arrest the gang members.

Buster, overwhelmed with gratitude, rushes forward to help a cop to his feet. He hugs and kisses the cop -- who looks familiar. Throughout the entire movie, this cop has been seeing Buster at his most inexplicable moments.

Answer: Josephine is left alone with Buster's camera and bag.

Buster manages to wrench himself away from the cop and grab his things. Josephine jumps aboard his shoulder. And Buster, thrilled at the thought of the fantastic footage he's just shot, hitches a ride back to the MGM newsreel office.

Answer: She cries.

Sally seems pretty heartbroken at this point, but she doesn't stay heartbroken for long. The next time we see her, she's on a date with Stag.

Answer: He sinks to his knees in the sand.

Buster's heartbreak on the beach is a beautiful shot, most likely filmed by cameraman Elgin Lessley, who had worked with Keaton since his early days at Comique with Roscoe Arbuckle. "The Cameraman" marked the last time the two would work together.

Answer: Sally arrives with exciting news. Buster emerges bewildered but triumphant.

Buster had dropped a film off at the newsreel office before going back to his old job. The boss decides it ought to be worth a laugh and sits down with Sally and Stag to see it. It's the missing Tong War footage, the footage of the boat mishap, and footage of Buster rescuing Sally and Stag taking the credit. It turns out that Josephine could crank a movie camera as well as she could crank a machine gun.

Sally rushes off to find Buster and breaks the news that everybody is waiting to give him a grand reception. The ticker tape that falls as Sally leads Buster back to the office strikes him as a bit much, but he lets it fall on him -- not realizing it's really for Charles Lindbergh. The end.