Top Five Gags: One Week

September 1^st, 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.

One Week (1920)

This is my one my favorite Buster Keaton shorts.  So funny, so creative, and so, so Buster.  I’ve used it as a “gateway short” to introduce people to Buster’s work, and it’s served me well.

Buster and his new bride receive a DIY home-in-a-box as a wedding gift, and the short chronicles their first week as a married couple while they struggle to assemble their house.  Thanks to some meddling from a jealous rival, they wind up working off of bad instructions, and as a result… well, you can see for yourself in the image above.  Despite the young couple’s best efforts, everything that can go wrong does, and the story culminates in probably the best climax out of any of Buster’s shorts.

Front and center, this short displays Buster’s engineering talent and the shrewd ways he used it to comedic advantage.  Everything about the patchwork house is absolute dilapidated perfection.  It looks fantastic on its own, and when you throw in the various added wrinkles of cleverness Buster throws in (the second-story front door, the porch railing that doubles as a ladder, the stretchy, sagging ceiling,) it’s an absolute delight.  The humor that Buster mines from this house, and the inventiveness he packs into it, is just incredible.

The story lends itself well to its vignette style, so it wanders comfortably, but the gags build continually, getting bigger and more outrageous until we get to the tremendous final scene.  Right from the beginning, there’s a fun sequence of circular gags that gets us off to a smart, snappy start, and it only gets better from there.  I like Buster’s little creative touches, like writing “WELCOME” upside-down on the mat before flipping it around – there’s no reason for him to write it upside-down, and it isn’t even really played like a joke, but it and moments like it help to infuse the short with so much personality.  And of course, the modest cameraman – who offers some quick ‘n’ easy censorship when Buster’s wife drops the soap over the side of the tub and has to retrieve it – is a classic Buster moment.  He wasn’t really known for breaking the fourth wall, but whenever he did, he did it like a pro.  (Also, for whatever reason, I just love it when Buster touches his face so you can see how dark his hands look compared to his white pancake makeup.  It makes me smile.)

I’m quite charmed by co-star Sybil Seely in this short.  She’s a good choice to play Buster’s wife – since this short doesn’t have the typical storyline of Buster falling for/trying to win over The Girl, there’s less for the female lead to do, and so it helps to have someone so personable and engaging in the role to make it spark a bit more.  She and Buster are sweet together (the moment where he gives her the tiniest peck on the lips and then sheepishly disappears around the corner is too adorable,) and they have great comedic timing as a pair.

I’ve sung the praises of this short’s ending elsewhere, so I won’t go into the details again.  Suffice to say that it is fabulous, and, considering how early it came in Buster’s career, it’s a pretty telling sign of the great things to come.

Warnings

A bit of slapstick violence and a heap of don’t-try-this-at-home.