Production on the first Keaton film is to start here in about three weeks. Kennedy and his backers promised him complete creative control, so Keaton signed on the dotted line and flew to Florida. (It later came to light that the deadpan star’s alcoholism had actually caused his unwitting dismissal from a lucrative MGM contract.) Keaton was having difficulty transitioning into “talkies,” and the nascent studio system – where the big bosses, the money men, dictated every rule of production – was driving him to distraction. Petersburg to begin a five-year contract with the Weedon Island studio. Kennedy and his in-house director Marshall Neiland made the front page of the Evening Independent May 23 with the announcement that silent film comedian Buster Keaton – “as a draw, second only to Chaplin” – was arriving in St.
