The Depression. Having lost their house and all their savings, an elderly couple are forced to turn for help to their children. They don’t want to be a burden; in fact the man makes every effort to remain the breadwinner he’d been all his hardworking life, but finding a job at his age turns out to be impossible. To the children, having to deal with parents in needy old age is a burden indeed, and they do little to hide their resentment. Ma and Pa, happily married for more than fifty years, can’t bear the thought of separation, but to the children this is the only fair and workable solution. At first supposedly just temporary, the separation is set to become permanent when Pa is forced to move to the home of a daughter living many miles from where Ma has been placed with a son and his wife. The children have arranged a farewell dinner for their parents, but, devastated by their children’s betrayal, and relishing the last day they’re given to be together before the man must leave for California, the two decide to skip the dinner and make it a night out on their own. They dine together at the very hotel where they spent their honeymoon. Comes the hour when the old man must catch his train. At the station, though they gamely behave as if it’s not the last time they’ll ever see each other (Pa will find a job out west, he’ll send for Ma, they’ll be together again soon, never to be parted), it is only too clear (to them, to us) how their story will end.

The saddest picture ever made, Orson Welles called it.

We watched it sitting side by side on the sofa, choking and clutching at each other like two people hopelessly trying to save each other from drowning.

Which is not to say that we regretted having watched it; no matter how sad, a beautifully told story lifts you up.

The owners of the house were into Buster Keaton. We watched Buster Keaton running downhill, dodging an avalanche of rocks, trying to put his passed-out drunk wife to bed, running from an army of cops, getting tangled up in the ropes of a boxing ring, trying to put his passed-out drunk wife to bed, being bullied by various much larger men, loving and being loved by a big brown cow, trying to put his passed-out drunk wife to bed. We watched Buster Keaton fall down, fall down, and fall down again, we watched the bed collapse under his passed-out drunk wife, and we laughed and laughed, choking and clutching at each other like two people hopelessly trying to save each other from drowning.

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