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store. You laughed because you knew the old Captain expected to see him in dungarees and a work shirt, and you laughed at Buster because he was expecting to step onto a modern steamboat.
You laughed again at the way Ernest Torrence in the pilot house, suffered when he got his first glimpse of Buster swinging down the dock in that smart uniform. You laughed at the Captain's agony because he was getting the punishment he deserved for leaving his wife and baby helpless years before.
You laughed at the thunderstruck expression on Second Mate Tom Lewis' face when he joined Torrence in the pilot house, adding to Torrence's embarrassment and misery. You laughed again when Lewis handed Torrence a loaded six shooter and said, "Here ... no jury would convict you!" And again when Buster passed the roughneck crew and bowed politely and they spat in disgust.
When Buster stepped off the gangplank onto the old steamboat and a small scow passing on the other side caused a slight wash that gently rocked the boat and Buster became terribly seasick the audience roared. And when he reached for an old weather beaten life-preserver hanging on a hook at the side of the boat and it slipped out of his hand into the river to sink like a rock there was more laughter.
In fact the audience did not stop laughing from the time Buster left the store in that neat looking uniform until long after he was on the old steamboat. If his uniform had been comical the Captain and crew would have laughed, not the audience.
The idea is, when two things are bidding for laughter at the same time, one is bound to weaken the effectiveness of the other, meaning that audiences could not possibly have enlarged as fully as they did upon the humor of Keaton's welcome with a comedy uniform claiming part of their attention.
Stepping out of that store in a comical uniform would not only have obtruded upon the conflict anticipated by the audience but the sympathy and suspense generated by hiking that anticipation would have been diluted.
Another way to analyze the laugh possibilities in a scene like that is to visualize two welcomes, one aboard
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