Buster Keaton -
Our Hospitality
1923
-
Our Hospitality is a silent comedy directed, produced, written by and starring Buster Keaton. Released in 1923 by Metro Pictures Corporation, the movie uses slapstick and situational comedy to tell the story of Willie McKay, a city slicker who gets caught in the middle of the infamous Canfield & McKay feud, an obvious satire of the real-life Hatfield-McCoy feud.
Some exteriors were shot near Truckee, California, and in Oregon. The famous waterfall rescue scene was shot using a special set at Keaton's Hollywood studio.
Keaton set the film in the 1830s so he could indulge his passion for trains by creating a working model of Stephenson's Rocket, an early locomotive. He also employed a dandy horse which, by the 1830s, would have been out of fashion. The traveling shots of the locomotive are clear precursors to later work on The General (1926), and were shot in the same Oregon locations.
Actor and Keaton friend Joe Roberts suffered a stroke while making this film, and died of a subsequent stroke shortly after the film's completion.
This is the only film to feature three generations of Keatons. Buster's father plays a train engineer while Buster's infant son plays a baby version of Buster in the film's prologue. Keaton's wife Natalie was pregnant with their second child during filming, and late in the production she had to be filmed to hide her growing size.
Adaptation
Directed by Buster Keaton
John G. Blystone
Produced by Joseph M. Schenck
Written by Clyde Bruckman
Starring:
Buster Keaton - Willie McKay
Joe Roberts - Joseph Canfield
Natalie Talmadge - Virginia Canfield
Ralph Bushman - Clayton Canfield
Craig Ward - Lee Canfield
Monte Collins - The Parson
Joe Keaton - The Engineer
Kitty Bradbury - Aunt Mary
Buster Keaton Jr. - Willie McKay (1 year old)
-
-
