Category: This Film Is 100 Years Old

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This Film Is 100 Years Old

Nosferatu (1922)

Nosferatu, directed by FW Murnau and starring Max Schreck as Count Orlok, was the first film adaptation of Dracula, although completely unofficial, and due to this was almost lost entirely when Bram Stoker’s estate sued FW Murnau, won, and had every known copy of it destroyed.

Luckily not even copyright can defeat a vampire, and so Nosferatu somehow survived. Which is nice, because as everyone already knows, it’s pretty marvellous.

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Notes

1. I watched this on blu-ray, and grabbed the screenshots from this version on youtube.

2. After watching some films that weren’t 100 years old at all yesterday, today I’ve made up for it by watching a film that is exactly 100 years old.

3. To the day

4. According to wikipedia at least

5. This was pure chance but still…

6. More than I could ever say about Nosferatu has almost certainly already been said.

7. And much more interestingly no doubt.

8. So instead, here’s a picture of Count Orlok’s skelebone clock, which I don’t think enjoys quite the popularity it should do really.

9. I wish I had a skelebone clock like that.

10. And maybe a ruined castle in which to keep it.

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Film Information

Title: Nosferatu
Director: FW Murnau
Year: 1922
Runtime: 95 minutes
Watch: youtube
Further Information: Nosferatu: History and Home Video Guide: part 1; Nosferatu: History and Home Video Guide: part 2; Wikipedia

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This Film Is 100 Years Old

The Electric House (1922)

After being mistaken for an engineer, Buster Keaton must electrify a rich man’s house, which he does by filling it with the most wonderful assortment of automated contraptions ever seen on film (or at least since various other Buster Keaton films already released).

The Electric House is quite similar to a fair few other Buster Keaton films (especially the haunted house sections of The Haunted House), and also reminded me of The Haunted Hotel and Hotel Electrique (not to mention Wallace and Gromit, due to the inclusion of a food delivering train set), but the whole things done with such flair and charm I didn’t really mind. I’m not sure I’ll ever really tire of pointless automated contraptions like this on film. Or Buster being scared of “ghosts”.

Not only that, but Buster, as always, knows that even the best of premises can be spiced up a little by the entirely superfluous addition of animals, so half way through we get the delightful appearance of these kittens watching a train of food go past.

Hooray for everything.

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Notes

1. I watched this on blu-ray. The screenshots are from a version on youtube.

2. There’s only two more of these Buster Keaton shorts left in the boxset, but they’re both from 1923.

3. So now I have to decide whether to keep to the premise of this website and wait a year to watch them, or break the entire premise of this website and watch them tomorrow because I have no self control at all.

4. Buster is such a temptress.

5. And I am so easily tempted.

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Film Information

Title: The Electric House
Directors: Buster Keaton and Edward F. Cline
Year: 1922
Duration: 24 minutes
Watch: youtube

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This Film Is 100 Years Old

Daydreams (1922)

In Daydreams, Buster Keaton must prove he’s man enough to marry a woman by taken on a series of jobs and showing her father he’s not too poor to provide for his wife to be.

The central framing of this film is that Buster, in his quest to actually hold down a job, writes letters home to his girlfriend telling her what he’s doing now. She then daydreams Buster being incredibly successful for a few seconds, before we get an extended sequence of Buster’s complete incompetence. Poor Buster.

This leads us to a series of vaguely related sketches in which Buster is a bad vet, a bad street cleaner, a bad actor, and finally a bad fugitive from the law, which I’m not sure is a job, exactly, but does mean we can get the obligatory Buster vs Cops chase scene to finish off the film (which here includes both an excellent surprise attack on a tram, and a wonderful sequence where he gets stuck on the paddlewheel of a steamboat).

The ending is surprisingly dark, too, with Buster being forced to commit suicide for his failures by his fiance’s father. Poor Buster indeed.

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Notes

1. I watched this on blu-ray, and grabbed the stills from this youtube version.

2. The restored version on the blu-ray is missing the first two daydreams of Buster in his job, which that youtube version has.

3. Although only as stills.

4. The restored version has a few extra minutes of stuff through the rest of it though.

5. Including a much longer paddle wheel section.

6. Which is wholly amazing and wonderful.

7. So if you can find a 24 minute version of this elsewhere you should watch that one.

8. In the hope that that bit’s all in there.

9. Also this is at least the second Buster Keaton film I’ve seen where he’s arrested for wearing a skirt (or maybe for not wearing pants, who knows)

10. I wonder if that was a common crime in the 1920s

11. Or just one of Buster’s greatest fears.

12. This film also contains the most astonishing dog I have ever seen.

13. As shown in the picture below.

14. I think that dog later appeared as an extra in The Dark Crystal

15. And if it didn’t it should have done.

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Film Information

Title: Daydreams
Directors: Buster Keaton and Edward F. Cline
Year: 1922
Duration: 24 minutes
Watch: youtube

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This Film Is 100 Years Old

The Frozen North (1922)

In The Frozen North, Buster Keaton plays around in the snow for a bit in this sort of western (with extended fishing interlude).

A parody of films I’ve never seen, but there’s still a lot of fun to be had here anyway, and it’s at least interesting to watch now just for the chance to see Buster Keaton changing his on screen persona from a lovable incompetent to a murderous arsehole (who is still, of course, incompetent), which is kind of shocking to see, really.

The ending, of course, provides him with mitigating circumstances for his behaviour, but the damage has already been done by then. I’m not sure I’ll ever recover from seeing Buster gunning people down in cold blood.

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Notes

1. I watched this on blu-ray again. The screenshots are from this near identical version on youtube.

2. The main target of The Frozen North’s parodic intent is supposedly William S. Hart.

3. But as I have never heard of William S. Hart I cannot confirm or deny.

4. But maybe I shall watch some of his films in an attempt to find out.

5. If there are any that still survive.

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Film Information

Title: The Frozen North
Directors: Buster Keaton and Edward F. Cline
Year: 1922
Duration: 18 minutes
Watch: youtube

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This Film Is 100 Years Old

The Blacksmith (1921/1922)

In The Blacksmith, Buster Keaton is a blacksmith. Which makes sense, I suppose (even if he wasn’t a goat in The Goat, or a boat in The Boat, and so on). Although he also seems to be a wheelwright, a farrier, and a car mechanic, too. Which makes slightly less sense, probably. Although is probably just further proof that Buster’s a very talented boy.

This one’s pretty rough, thematically at least, mostly just being a series of disparate sketches occasionally but not always related to blacksmithing. And although I wouldn’t say this is one of Buster Keaton’s best, I still enjoyed it a lot, especially the strangely charming scene where Buster has to get some shoes for a horse.

Which I liked a lot, I really did. I could not tell you why.

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Notes

1. I watched both versions of this on blu-ray. I captured the images from this version on youtube.

2. The Blacksmith has quite an interesting history.

3. For a long time it was considered completely lost, before James Mason found a copy of it in the loft of Buster Keaton’s old house, 30 years or so after Buster Keaton had last lived there.

4. This was assumed (unsurprisingly) to be the release version of the film, but after someone discovered another print of it about ten years ago, it turned out this was only a pre-release version.

5. This new version (released in 1922), has a few new sequences, omits some old ones, has a different start, and some tighter editing in places (I think).

6. The version I grabbed the screenshots from was the 1921 pre-release version.

7. Which is a lot worse than the 1922 actual release version.

8. And although there’s not actually that much that’s different between the two versions (maybe 3 or 4 minutes), it’s quite interesting watching them both just to see how much difference editing can make to the overall quality of things.

9. Unfortunately I can’t find this version on youtube, so you’ll just have to trust me on this.

10. Or buy the Buster Keaton box set I’ve been watching.

11. Which you should, because it’s wonderful.

12. Anyway, here’s an old article about the new version, with a minute or so of some of the new stuff embedded half way down.

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Film Information

Title: The Blacksmith
Directors: Buster Keaton and Malcom St. Clair
Year: 1921/1922
Duration: 22 minutes
Watch: 1921 version (full version); 1922 version (excerpts only)

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This Film Is 100 Years Old

My Wife’s Relations (1922)

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

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This Film Is 100 Years Old

Cops (1922)

Cops is yet another Buster Keaton short from 1922, in which, after a series of comedic mishaps, Buster Keaton will be chased by every policeman in the city.

This one is very odd. There’s almost 8 whole minutes, I think, of Buster riding a horse drawn cart very slowly around New York before we get to the madcap chase scene at the end. Buster’s accidental crimes involve pickpocketing, theft, and blowing up half the policemen in New York. And at the end, because he’s failed to convince his love to marry him, it’s heavily implied he commits suicide by cop.

It’s great, but definitely pretty weird, all in all.

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Notes

1. I watched this on blu-ray again. The screenshots are from this youtube version.

2. I’ve had some sort of mild flu all week, and maybe that contributed to this all feeling like a weird and unsettling fever dream at some points.

3. Also I love Buster Keaton’s commitment to using some of his most amazing stunts as almost easily missable throwaway jokes at the ends of scenes, such as his parachuting off a cliff with a blanket in The Paleface yesterday.

4. And then this astonishing escape towards the end of this one.

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Film Information

Title: Cops
Directors: Buster Keaton and Edward F. Cline
Year: 1922
Duration: 18 minutes
Watch: youtube

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This Film Is 100 Years Old

The Paleface (1922)

The Paleface is a Buster Keaton comic western, in which Buster is sentenced to death for trespassing on Native lands.

I’d sort of been dreading this one, based on the name alone, assuming it wouldn’t have aged particularly well (it has not aged particularly well). I wasn’t expecting it to be quite so tedious and jokeless though.

There’s a few bits of good classic Buster here, with possibly the best “getting onto a horse” joke in his repertoire, and a section where he falls down a hill for a minute or so, but mostly I found it slightly wearying, to be honest.

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Notes

1. I watched this on blu-ray again. The screenshots are from this slightly shorter version on youtube.

2. Also hooray, I am actually up to 1922 now.

3. Finally doing my job.

4. It’s strange, though, how, with each passing year it feels like I’m catching up to now a bit more.

5. Despite 100 years ago always being 100 years ago.

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Film Information

Title: The Paleface
Directors: Buster Keaton and Edward F. Cline
Year: 1922
Runtime: 25 minutes

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This Film Is 100 Years Old

The Playhouse (1921)

In The Playhouse, Buster Keaton is trapped in a theatre and must perform for us all, forever (until the end, where he gets married for some reason).

Apparently Buster Keaton made this one with a broken ankle, so relies more on his vaudeville background than any particularly elaborate stunts, with the majority of the film having the feel of an episode of The Muppets, with Buster’s various acts going increasingly wrong to the consternation of the cast and crew and the amusement of the audience.

A lot of this is very similar to the previous Buster Keaton/Fatty Arbuckle film, Back Stage, which is also set in a theatre and has an incredibly similar back stage set. But Fatty Arbuckle never sets his fake beard on fire, so I think this one’s probably better overall.

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Notes

1. I watched this on blu-ray again. The screenshots come from this youtube version.

2. The bit at the end of this, where an obvious mannequin comes flying out of the shattered mermaid tank, is strangely reminiscent, in a sort fo reversed way, of the bit at the end of A Nightmare On Elm Street, where an obvious mannequin gets pulled backwards though a window.

3. The first section of this, in which Buster Keaton plays ever actor on stage, every musician in the orchestra, and every single person in the audience, is pretty astonishing.

4. The multiple exposure stuff is flawless, and technically amazing considering that they still used manually hand-cranked film cameras at the time.

5. It sort of makes my head hurt thinking about how painstakingly accurate they must have been to make it work this well.

6. But also there’s some black face in this bit, I’m afraid.

7. But it’s not too egregiously monstrous, fortunately.

8. Weirdly though the entire section where he’s playing a monkey (orangutan) playing a human genuinely horrified me in ways beyond even the misidentification of the orangutan (an orangutan) as a monkey (not an orangutan).

9. Possibly the mild illness delirium I watched this through is to blame.

10. I do not know.

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Film Information

Title: The Playhouse
Directors: Buster Keaton and Edward F. Cline
Year: 1921
Duration: 22 minutes
Watch: youtube

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This Film Is 100 Years Old

The Hayseed (1919)

In The Hayseed, Fatty Arbuckle plays a postman who woos a local girl, who is also being pursued by the corrupt local Sheriff. To spoil the plot somewhat, Fatty prevails.

This was another fairly slight Fatty Arbuckle short, in that there’s not much here that’s especially inventive or funny. But what it does have is a kind of charming sweetness that you definitely don’t usually get with Fatty Arbuckle at all.

Also there’s plenty of Luke the Dog, and Buster Keaton does some magic tricks, which he’s, unsurprisingly brilliant, like he is at literally everything else he ever did.

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Notes

1. I watched this on blu-ray agai. Stills taken from here, which isn’t the best quality copy, I’m afraid.

2. It’s hard to see on that youtube version, but I also very much liked the sign on the side of the shop that says “There’s no end to our pretzels.”

3. Which is a pretty good joke.

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Film Information

Title: The Hayseed
Director: Fatty Arbuckle
Year: 1919
Duration: 21 minutes
Watch: youtube