London, 1965. As Big Ben chimes 9am, Buster Keaton — the silent comic whose greatness arguably outshines even that of Charlie Chaplin — stands on Westminster Bridge leafing through a Sunday Times.
Espying an advert therein ('SEE CANADA NOW!') the Great Stone Face does what any sensible person would: he folds up the broadsheet, hoiks himself onto the bridge's balustrades and pencil dives into the chilly waters below. When he emerges, he is no longer in London, but the coast of Nova Scotia.
Thus The Railrodder — a 25-minute Keaton vehicle produced by the National Film Board of Canada to flaunt highlights of the North American country — begins. Vehicle is an apt word; the plot has Keaton commandeer a rail maintenance contraption, and ride deadpan from the east to west coast of Canada, turning various tricks (polishing his shoes, eating dinner, taking a nap) along the way. London is never seen again.
So did the ageing Keaton really perform that jump off Westminster Bridge? The silent movie legend did, after all, insist on doing pretty much all his own stunts — often injuring himself, and once breaking his neck without realising until nine years later. But in this instance, the truth isn't what we want to hear. Ruth Sharman from the International Buster Keaton Society tells Londonist, "I can confirm that it definitely wasn't Buster jumping off the bridge — Buster attended the shoot in Canada only and whilst he took part in and helped advise and devise stunts for the short film, that wasn't one of them!"
So there we have it: the bridge is genuinely Westminster, but the 'Buster' isn't genuinely Keaton; it's a rare stunt double.
What a coup for London it would have been if Keaton himself had plunged into the Thames, in what turned out to be one of his final on-screen acts. You can understand why though; Keaton was almost 70 when The Railrodder was made, and he died the year after the film's release.
Still, Buster Keaton did perform in London. In the summer of 1951, he came to the UK for his humbly-named Do You Remember Me? tour. "Buster is Still Funny" proclaimed the Daily Express after his appearance at the Chiswick Empire that June. "Now 54, the silent film comic with the mutely suffering bullfrog eyes spent 12 silent minutes last night trying to scoop a dead-tired woman, his wife, into bed. It is a funny act."
Seven years after The Railrodder, another bridge-related tourism video featuring a major star being teleported from the Thames to North America was made: read about the time Tom Jones caught a number 13 bus to Arizona.
