What! No Beer? (1933)

“What – No Beer?” is a 1933 Pre-Code comedy movie from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, directed by Edward Sedgwick and featuring Buster Keaton and Jimmy Durante. During this period, MGM teamed up Keaton and Durante as a comedy duo, also appearing together in “The Passionate Plumber” and “Speak Easily.”

The production of “What – No Beer?” was quite challenging. Since his move to MGM in 1928, Keaton’s creative autonomy was limited compared to his silent film days. By 1933, personal issues and a tumultuous divorce were impacting Keaton’s work. He frequently arrived on set inebriated or late. Nevertheless, he remained a dedicated professional and a skilled acrobat, managing to complete the film, even performing demanding pratfalls despite his visible impairment.

As per Wikipedia, the Lobby Card image is sourced from a scan conducted at Heritage Auctions. It is considered to be in the public domain because there is no copyright notice, and no registration was discovered in the 1933 copyright catalog.

In addition, The distinctive and oversized employee time clock situated in the brewery was manufactured by the International Time Recording Company, later becoming IBM in 1929, around 1910-12. This unique time clock came in various models designed to accommodate a workforce of up to 150 employees.

It operated using a spring-driven mechanism with a substantial cast iron wheel. The wheel’s circumference featured a series of numbered perforations. To record their clock-ins, each employee would turn the pointer to their designated number and then depress it. Subsequently, the device would record the time on a printed form and trigger a bell. This clock utilized a two-colored ribbon, using green ink for “regular time” and red for marking early arrivals, tardiness, and overtime. One of these remarkable units can be viewed on display at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in Washington, DC.

Cast

• Buster Keaton plays the role of Elmer J. Butts.
• Jimmy Durante stars as Jimmy Potts.
• Roscoe Ates takes on the character Schultz.
• Phyllis Barry portrays Hortense.
• John Miljan appears as Butch Lorado.
• Henry Armetta assumes the role of Tony.
• Edward Brophy embodies Spike Moran.
• Charles Dunbar is featured as Mulligan.
• Charles Giblyn takes on the character of Chief.
• Sidney Bracey plays the role of Dr. Smith, the Prohibition speaker.
• James Donlan portrays Al.

What! No Beer? (1933) – Story line

It’s an election year, and the potential end of Prohibition is on the horizon. Elmer J. Butts (Buster Keaton), a taxidermist, stumbles into a “dry” rally and becomes smitten with Hortense (Phyllis Barry), who is romantically involved with the bootlegger Butch Lorado (John Miljan). The following day, a car plastered with pro-booze slogans, driven by barber Jimmy Potts (Jimmy Durante), persuades Elmer to vote in favor of ending Prohibition. Their trip to the polls results in chaos and the destruction of voting booths.

Jimmy shares his million-dollar idea with Elmer: brewing their own beer to quench the public’s thirst. Elmer, driven by the desire to amass wealth and marry Hortense, who he knows has $10,000 hidden in stuffed animals, purchases a dilapidated brewery.

Elmer and his hired workers begin bottling beer, experiencing numerous mishaps with exploding bottles and frothy disasters. However, their brewery is raided by the police before Prohibition’s repeal is official.

With Prohibition under threat, rival bootlegger Spike Moran (Edward Brophy) sees his empire crumbling. Butch Lorado is also anxious about the situation. Spike and Butch meet to discuss their interests, with Butch determined to eliminate the competition.

In the brewery, Elmer decides to take charge of deliveries and drives a beer truck uphill. Butch’s gangsters plan to ambush him on the street, but the barrels tumble from the truck, sending them fleeing. Meanwhile, Butch declares himself Elmer’s new partner in the brewery. Hortense manages to slip a note to Elmer warning of an impending police raid. Elmer escapes in a barrel, retrieves a blackboard, and speeds away. He displays a message on the board to everyone on the street: “Free beer at the brewery.” The brewery is instantly swarmed, and when the police arrive, all the beer is gone, leaving no evidence behind, thwarting both the authorities and Butch.

Later, a senator addresses Congress, recounting how a brewery mobbing put gangsters out of business. Beer eventually becomes legal. At Butts’s Beer Garden, Elmer and Jimmy arrive in an open car. Jimmy offers free beer, and the mob gathers again. Holding a frosty brew aloft, Jimmy addresses the camera: “It’s your turn next, folks. The wait won’t be much longer!”

What! No Beer? (1933) – Production insights

Buster Keaton vanished from the production and tied the knot with Mae Scriven, who was hired as his caregiver to help him maintain sobriety, during an inebriated escapade in Mexico.

Furthermore, according to IMDB, In an interview with Dave Davies on the National Public Radio show “Fresh Air,” Buster Keaton’s biographer, Dana Stevens, pointed to this film as potentially being the lowest point in Keaton’s MGM career. She described “What! No Beer?” as “perhaps the most difficult film to watch in Keaton’s tenure at MGM” because it marked the end of this phase of his career. By this time, Keaton was grappling with depression, alcoholism, and a painful divorce, all of which had left him in a state of chaos and misery .

These personal struggles were unmistakably evident onscreen. The character he portrayed in this film was a far cry from the resourceful and resilient characters he had become known for – instead, he came across as passive and even masochistic. The MGM movies often depicted him as being physically overpowered by larger characters, with scenes that lacked the humor that characterized his earlier work. In this phase, he no longer got the girl, and he often played the role of an outcast or a loser, which didn’t align with his natural character or sense of humor.

It seemed that MGM never truly understood who Keaton was or what kind of roles suited him. They failed to grasp that some performers, when given creative freedom, can achieve incredible results, but when that freedom is stripped away, they become trapped. Keaton felt and appeared this way in his MGM films.

His struggles with alcohol, which had deep-rooted family connections, intensified during this period, especially as his marriage unraveled, job satisfaction plummeted, and those challenging years took a toll on his life.

What! No Beer? (1933) – Consequences

As a consequence, he was fired from MGM by Louis B. Mayer in 1933, and he faced a few difficult years, struggling to find work and battling to control his drinking. At one point, he even married his sobriety nurse, the woman hired to ensure he stayed sober. These years constituted a dark period in his life.

A misconception has endured, suggesting that Buster Keaton’s transition to talkies marked critical and commercial disappointments that nearly spelled the end of his career. In reality, most of these talkies were quite profitable. While MGM had planned to continue the Keaton series (with Keaton and Durante set to co-star alongside Jackie Cooper), “What – No Beer?” marked Keaton’s final MGM feature and his last leading role in American feature films. Following this, Keaton predominantly starred in 26 short subjects and often took on supporting roles after 1941.

Even though it marked Buster Keaton’s farewell movie at MGM and his last leading role in the United States, he continued to create several short films, make appearances on television, and play character roles in other movies.