September 1st, 1920 – the day One Week was released. This was the first independent short Buster Keaton put out, and it’s pretty much a perfect encapsulation of his humor, his ingenuity, his slapstick acrobatics, and his vision as a director/creator. It’s so peppered with incredible gags that, even going with extended gag sequences, I had a hard time limiting myself to just five from this doesn’t-waste-a-moment two-reeler (spoilers.)
Post-Wedding Getaway
Why Buster and his wife are having her spurned would-be suitor drive them from the wedding is anyone’s guess, but it’s fertile ground for Buster’s clockwork-like comic sensibilities. I won’t take us through every beat of this intricate mechanical gag, but each element – from the motorcycle scooping up Buster as he straddles the two cars, to Buster knocking the police officer on the head with his baton a second time right as his wife gets out of the second car, to the just-married car making its driverless saunter back around for Buster and his wife to get back in – is timed to perfection. This right here is what inimitable looks like.
Laying the Carpet
Simple but great. Of course Buster lays the carpet over the jacket he dropped on the floor, leaving a laughably-conspicuous lump. But in true Buster fashion, he’s just as quick to find solutions as he is to make mistakes. He cuts out the offending lump, uses a throw rug to cover the hole in the carpet, and turns the cut-out piece into a welcome mat. I love the little touch of him writing “WELCOME” upside-down and then flipping the mat around – it doesn’t make the moment any funnier, but it just sparkles with personality.
Installing the Chimney
Oh, the slapstick! Watching this today, my absolute biggest laugh-out-loud moment (of which there were many) was Buster blindly groping for the ladder as he stumbled around with the chimney over his head. Once he finally manages to reach the roof, it’s obvious that he’s going to fall through the hole as he sets the chimney up, but the moment doesn’t disappoint, and having him fall into the bathtub below makes for a great capper.
The Storm
Everything about this sequence, in which a storm picks up and the wind makes the cockeyed house revolve like a merry-go-round, is just scrumptious. I love Buster’s repeated attempts to time things right to leap back inside as the front door comes around, and when he gets in, I laugh so hard at him staggering and whirling like a top as the house continues to spin. The other actors spinning inside is funny enough, but Buster takes it to another level.
Moving the House
A classic. After all of the couple’s trials and tribulations with the house, finding out they built it on the wrong lot would be the final joke in plenty of shorts, but Buster’s can-do attitude takes it a step further. He resolves to tow their now-dilapidated house across the railroad tracks (I love the little touches, like his wife using the car jack to “jack” the house up while Buster wedges barrels underneath each corner to serve as makeshift wheels,) an ambitious venture that’s doomed to failure. In a way, this neatly parallels the sequence with the cars at the start of the short, where everything is so impeccably-timed to go both right and wrong. But where timing in the former gag starts out against Buster and then turns in his favor, it’s the opposite here. Just masterful – even if audiences already knew a lot about Buster’s talent from his vaudeville career and his work in the Fatty Arbuckle shorts, One Week reintroduced Buster so confidently, so skillfully. I can’t see how anyone could’ve watched this short in 1920 and not walked out of the theater clamoring to see what he would come up with next.
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