Author Archive: Retro

Newlyweds attempt to build a prefabricated house with disastrous and comic results.

Out of work, Buster tries various ways to commit suicide. At last he tries “poison” from a bottle containing booze. The president of a sporting club speaks of the need for a sportsman to promote the club and drunken Buster gets the job for which he must learn fishing, hunting and riding.

Keaton spoofs melodramatic westerns as a villainous outlaw in Alaska.

Botany major Buster mistakenly graduates in electrical engineering and is hired to wire a new home, installing many fanciful gadgets. The one who should’ve received the degree seeks revenge by rewiring the gadgets to wreak havoc.

The opening scene, a dream sequence prior to the vaudeville routines which follow, is what makes this film famous. In it Keaton plays everyone in a theatre simultaneously (through multiple exposures). He is the band leader, all its members, the dancers on the stage and everyone in the audience. A technical triumph.