The Navigator stranded Keaton and his co-star alone on a huge ocean liner, and turned the ship itself into a playground.
The Navigator was released in 1924. Keaton played Rollo Treadway, a wealthy young man who decided to go on a honeymoon cruise alone after being refused by Betsy O’Brien, played by Kathryn McGuire. By chance, Betsy also boarded the same ship, which had been set adrift by saboteurs, and the two found themselves alone on a vast liner in the middle of the ocean.
The comedy came from scale. Rollo and Betsy, two people who had never done any practical work, had to cook, navigate and survive on a ship built for hundreds. Keaton used the ship’s kitchens, decks and lifeboats for a series of gags, including a famous underwater sequence in which he tried to repair the ship’s propeller while wearing a diving suit.
The Navigator was one of Keaton’s most popular films, and it showed his ability to build comedy from a single location. The ship, like the house in One Week or the train in The General, was both a setting and a machine, and Keaton’s calm face made its dangers seem both funny and real.