Warner Archives already announced Doughboys, Sidewalks of New York, and What! No Beer? for November 8.

The first two are range from okay to great, but that last one is fairly dire. The transfers if they're using the same are all excellent.

I wish I could agree with you, but there's no way I could endorse DOUGHBOYS as good Keaton. It might be one of his better films from the 30s, but the direction is poverty row terrible and Keaton himself is barely going through the motions (and possibly intoxicated during some of it). There's a few snappy lines of dialogue, but it takes forever for the film to go anywhere. Also, the print quality was very mediocre. I still have THE PASSIONATE PLUMBER and WHAT! NO BEER? to watch (I'm not holding out any hope for these), but so far I'd say that PARLOR, BEDROOM AND BATH strikes me as the most watchable from this period.

The only sequence I like in Doughboys is the Apache dance which would no doubt have been better executed in one of his silents under his own direction, but at least it feels in keeping with Keaton's hope that sound films could add something useful to his visual humour without dominating it. The typically leaden pacing of early talkies (esp. MGM's) kills the film as a whole for me, though.

David Kalat wrote a spirited defence of The Passionate Plumber which to some extent I agree with. I find it hard to get past Jimmy Durante but he isn't as annoying as in his other films with Buster. I hope I never have to sit through Speak Easily or What No Beer? again. Or indeed Free and Easy, which would've made a nice coaster from the Warner set if the same disc didn't also contain the Photoplay documentary! The other MGMs do have their moments, but I'd much rather watch almost any of the Educational shorts he made shortly after them.

Speak Easily is toe-curlingly dire. My Sight & Sound capsule review was heavily truncated in the print version, but this is what I originally submitted:

Having watched this last night, I agree as well. THE PASSIONATE PLUMBER struck me as a much better film than DOUGHBOYS. It was not a chore to sit through, the film never stayed in one place too long and Keaton seemed focused and intelligent.

Unfortunately, I then watched WHAT! NO BEER? and couldn't wait for the 70 minutes to be over with. It had a funny premise, but the material was very weak and Keaton was in such bad shape that his performance was painful to watch.

Just to return to this topic, I was recently reading Irving Brecher's memoir The Wicked Wit of the West. He has sole script credit on Go West, and talks briefly about the film. Besides noting that the train sequence was shot by the second unit, not Edward Buzzell, he also says "The special effects stuff was reminiscent of Buster Keaton, who was actually on the set working with Harpo. We shot in the San Fernando valley and that train...well, it took liberties." [Boldface mine]
This seems to clinch Keaton's involvement with the film. Unlike Groucho, Brecher remained mentally sharp up to the end, and his recall can be trusted. The next step would probably be to compare the shooting script to the film, but until I can locate the former, I'll maintain that many of the Keatonian gags in this Marx Brothers film were actually by Keaton.

Completely coincidentally, I saw The General and Go West for the first time within a few days of each other - thankfully, in that order. Even if Keaton didn't directly contribute to the latter, its debt is glaringly obvious.

Seven Chances on Blu and DVD from Kino on Dec 14th

Announced on Kino's Facebook feed:

3/20 - LOST KEATON: SIXTEEN COMEDY SHORTS - 1934-1937 (2-disc Blu-ray) - features all 16 Educational Pictures shorts, 14 of which have never been available on DVD

That's exciting as heck, I assumed they would limit themselves to the remaining features at this point

Wait, these were already released onto DVD last year, no?

Yes.

Haha, I guess they just copied and pasted the description from before. Still exciting to have it on blu, though.

Yep, because it means it will probably be part of that inevitable HD Keaton boxset they'll release someday. At the rate they're releasing the Keaton features, maybe next holidays.

Haha, I hope there's no exclusive features on that, because I've got every Keaton release they've put out so far. It's a really great product line, I'm impressed with how much effort Kino's putting into it.

Buster Keaton's first Italian film, L'incantevole nemica, has been released on DVD by RHV. The disc doesn't have subtitles, but Keaton's guest appearance are silent, so that's not a great problem. Here you can see his big scene.

Thanks for the link. I can't imagine that Keaton had anything to do with the direction of this scene as it's handled poorly from top-to-bottom. The discontinuity, along with terrible shot compositions and angles, does nothing to support Keaton's timing.

According to an interview with director Claudio Gora, the scene was filmed with three cameras, but in my opinion the problem is that they have roughly inserted these mismatched closer shots...

The three camera shoot makes the scene resemble an old school television sit-com. You're right that the closer shots are mismatched. Also, Buster is clearly not standing by the closed door when the curtain rises but magically appears there two shots later. Had this scene been in one of Keaton's own films, he would have framed both himself, the long pizza peel and the dough in wide shot so the viewer could see the cause-and-effect (or lack thereof) without a cut. The closing gag showing Keaton propelled into the oven only works if the viewer can't quite determine where Keaton is aiming the peel. The angle chosen makes it all-too-clear that the dough on the peel will not be entering the oven.

Anyway, I'm probably being overly critical of the scene, but it makes for a good comparison to similar scenes in films that Keaton directed where he displayed an innate sense of framing and cutting for maximum laughs.