Year: 1920
Director: Edward F. Cline
Country: US
Language: N/A
One Week was Buster Keaton’s first starring vehicle—a 19-minute short that kicked off a decade of artistic achievement matched by few people afterward, including Buster Keaton. Though this was his humble beginning, we can see seeds of great films like The General (1927) within this picture. His love for gags, both spectacular and subtle, can be seen here.
A newly wedded couple attempts to build a house with a prefabricated kit, unaware that a rival sabotaged the kit's component numbering.
The story is basic, but the jokes certainly make up for it. The newlywed couple find that their house is a DIY project in the most literal sense. They mis-assemble the house to comic effect, establishing funny elements destined to appear again and again in Keaton’s work. We also see Keaton's desire for potentially deadly stunts as, in one scene, he climbs from one car into another at high speed.
One week is a brisk, charming and, most importantly, funny Buster Keaton picture that proves captivating almost a century after it was made. Armed with an incredible visual imagination, One Week is just one of many great pictures by this silent clown. The most amusing scene may be when Keaton gets into a fight with a cop that has a very familiar toothbrush mustache. A jab at Chaplin perhaps? Watch to find out!
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