One Week (1920)

A newlywed couple attempt to build a house with a prefabricated kit, unaware that a rival sabotaged the kit's component numbering.

Directors:

Edward F. Cline, Buster Keaton

Stars:

Buster Keaton, Joe Roberts, Sybil Seely

1 win.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Buster Keaton	...	The Groom

Storyline

Buster and Sybil exit a chapel as newlyweds. Among the gifts is a portable house you easily put together in one week. It doesn't help that Buster's rival for Sybil switches the numbers on the crates containing the house parts.

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Plot Keywords:

house | newlyweds | wednesday | construction | moving a building | 

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Genres:

Short | Comedy

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Certificate:

TV-G

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

1 September 1920 (USA)

Also Known As:

Una semana

Filming Locations:

Congregational Sunday School, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Joseph M. Schenck Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

25 min 25 min (TCM Print) 19 min (1995 Film Preservation print)

Sound Mix:

Silent

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

After two more appearances in Buster Keaton's shorts, Sybil Seely was replaced as leading lady by Virginia Fox. However, Buster asked her back for The Boat with the idea of combining it with this film into a four reel-feature. However, it never came to pass.

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Goofs

The directions to the house explain it should be constructed according to the numbers of the crates; but Buster already has the walls up when Handy Hank changes the number on crate 1.

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Connections

Featured in Buster Keaton: A Hard Act to Follow (1987)

User Reviews

Buster and his new wife get a new house, but it comes in box, comic chaos follows

Keaton was now out on his own, no longer working with Fatty Arbuckel. 'One Week'was his first independent film. Joseph Schneck produced the film, having done work on the Fatty and Keaton shorts. The team of Buster Keaton and Eddi Cline directed and did script work as would follow in most of Keaton's other shorts. 'One Week' is definitive of Buster Keaton's style. It is purely gag over narrative. Keaton's performance is more important than the story, and that was pretty much how all his later movies worked. Keaton also enjoyed capturing the world around him as it happened. His stunts in this movie did not rely on editing. The house really did turn, the train sequence was real. This was a good beginning to what followed.