The Navigator, 1924 directed by and starring Buster Keaton

The Navigator is a 1924 American comedy film directed by and starring Buster Keaton. The film was written by Clyde Bruckman and co-directed by Donald Crisp.

In 2018, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”

While Keaton’s Art Director Fred Gabourie was scouting shipyards in San Francisco for another project, The Sea Hawk, he was shown the former USAT Buford, a 5,000 ton, 500 foot ship that was being sold for scrap metal. Prior to The Navigator, the Buford’s most controversial service had occurred in 1919–20, during the First Red Scare, when it was used as the “Soviet Ark” to deport 249 “undesirables” from the United States to revolutionary Russia. Gabourie was told that a film production could do anything with the ship, including set it on fire or sink it. Gabourie rushed back to Los Angeles to tell Keaton about the ship. Keaton immediately began planning a film centered around the Buford and had producer Joseph Schenck charter the boat for $25,000 with a crew and sail it to Los Angeles.