Silent Movies - One Week

How good are you at putting together furniture? I have two small identical chests. One looks just fine, the other keeps coming a bit apart in one spot - until I knock it together again with a perfectly aimed slap. I have absolutely no idea what I did differently on the second one. This is just one example. Sometimes I'm fine, sometimes not so much.
Could I put together a whole house, though?
Let's see how good Buster Keaton is at it, shall we? Today I have the two-reeler "One Week" from 1920 for you.

As usual the plot (spoilers!). My intro probably gave you a bit of an idea already ...

For their wedding, Uncle Mike gives a happy couple a house and lot No. 99 Apple Street.

The driver is Handy Hank, the guy the
bride had turned down.

When they come to the lot, though, there's no house but a truck delivering boxes from the Portable House Co. The instructions tell them to put their home together according to the numbers on the boxes "to give this house a snappy appearance".

Buster starts right away, but jealous Hank secretly alters some numbers on the boxes.

So when Buster has finished, it's no surprise that the house looks like this.

And like this.

Aaand like this.

One of the times when Buster actually hurt
himself during a stunt - I don't recommend walking out
of a door that high up and falling on your back!

Friday 13th is the day of the house-warming. Everyone has a look into all the rooms when a storm comes up. First it is raining through the roof - anyone surprised? - then the house starts revolving practically turning into a fairground ride.
The next day it looks like this.

Then they are informed that they are on the wrong lot, the sign had got turned around, and it's not No. 99, but 66. Their lot is across the railroad track (yes, you know what's coming next).
They use barrels for wheels and start pulling the house away with the car, but it gets stuck on the tracks (does this make anyone else think of "Houseboat"?) and a train is nearing.
Just when they are relieved to see that the train has missed the house ...

... no comment.

Buster puts up a "For Sale" sign and leaves the directions, and they walk off hand in hand.

I know that's a weird association, but I had to think of Shirley Jackson in whose books houses often play an important role and can be an entity of their own.
This "Portable House" product certainly looks like one of those to me because there's no way a few altered numbers would have been able to change it like that ... 

The plot seems to have been inspired by a Ford Motor Company documentary. Ford had produced educational movies from 1914 to 1925 and one called "Home Made" from 1919 showed the construction of a prefabricated house.
I don't have to see it to know that it wasn't as hilarious as "One Week".
"One Week" wasn't the first short Keaton made alone (after working with Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle before), but it was the first one to get released in September 1920.
What makes it so amazing is that no model was used. This was an actual house built on a turntable. In combination with the stunts and the gags that was extremely effective - and there were a lot some of which I didn't even notice when I watched the film the second (and surely not last) time.
These are just a few of the stunts. Both Keaton and Sybil Seely did them themselves - like the rotating house panel which lifted Sybil up then came down on Buster (a stunt he used in other films as well).

What made this short even better for me was the chemistry between Keaton and Sybil. I liked them in "The Scarecrow", but here they are together from the start and run into one problem after the other, and still they don't give up. A quick kiss and on they go. They make such a cute couple. It's a pity that Seely gave up filming very early after getting married and having a child. 

Beside the stunts, there's also a very charming scene with Sybil sitting in the tub and losing the soap.
I love the way they did this and even more the smug little smile Sybil is giving the viewer after the "censoring" hand is gone.

Tremendous fun and definitely also a good choice for a first silent movie! 😉

By the way, the movie shows a calendar leaf torn off from day to day.
If we go by the weekdays in the year 1920, the house would have been built either in February or in August. No, I don't know either why I felt compelled to look that up! I'm just weird that way! 😂


Sources:

1. Lea Stans: Thoughts on Keaton's "One Week". On: Silent-ology, March 23, 2014
2. Virginie Pronovost: My First Time with Buster Keaton: One Week. On: The Wonderful World of Cinema, February 22, 2017
3. Daniel Eagan: One Week. Excerpt on: National Film Preservation Board - Documents