In My Wife’s Relations, Buster Keaton plays an effete taffy salesman who accidentally marries into a family of burly working class sorts. Misunderstandings and mayhem ensue.
I can’t say I particularly enjoyed this one. Comedies of manners aren’t exactly my thing, especially when they’re comedies of manners 100 years and 10000 miles away from any I really understand (what even is taffy?). But Buster has a consistently excellent series of exasperated expressions, there’s a pretty great dinner scene, and the restored ending is marvellous, with a perfectly staged escape from five floors up via numerous window awnings all the way to the ground, so it’s not an entirely wasted watch by any means.
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Notes
1. I watched this on blu-ray, and got the screenshots from this youtube version.
2. None of the youtube versions seem to have the restored ending, so I couldn’t get a shot of my favourite scene.
3. But it was pretty good I promise.
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Film Information
Title: My Wife’s Relations
Directors: Buster Keaton and Edward F. Cline
Year: 1922
Runtime: 25 minutes
Watch: youtube