Buster Keaton in the rain

[Buster Keaton as Ronald, in College (dir. James W. Horne, 1927).]

There’s an explanation: young Ronald has been sharing that umbrella with his mother (played by Florence Turner, formerly the Vitagraph Girl of early silents).

College has many delights, including a spectacular scene of soda-jerkery. The film’s ending is extraordinarily funny and extraordinarily grim, tracking two lifetimes in just ten seconds. Life’s short.

Eighty-three years later, it’s still raining.