The most popular silent movie comedians in their heyday were permitted, if not encouraged, to direct their own films. Comedians such as Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd and Roscoe Arbuckle were freely given the independence to direct, act, and often times write the scripts for their own movies. The payoffs for their success were beneficial for both their studios and for themselves. Buster Keaton joined that illustrious rank when he began his own production company in 1920 where he directed all his films for the next 10 years until 1930.
Keaton received his first taste in commanding a film production behind the lens when co-director Arbuckle gave him the responsibility to direct of few scenes in June 1917's "The Rough House." The motion picture was Buster's only second one he appeared in, but he became a quick study in learning his new profession as a movie actor after years on the stage. Also, he had begun to understand the craft of move making, assisting Arbuckle on writing the scenarios of "The Rough House."
The title of Keaton's partly-directed debut film derives from the last names of Arbuckle's household, The Roughs. A day in the life of The Roughs consists of a fire in the bedroom, a male fight and arrest over a housemaid's attentions, a dinner party gone haywire, and a theft of jewels in the house. And that's just in a 24-hour period.
One particular sequence of special interest to film historians is when Roscoe places a pair of forks into two rolls of bread and choreographs a dancing scene with them. In Chaplin's 1925's "The Gold Rush," one of cinema's more famous sequences is when he's entertaining his visionary female guests with his "bread roll dance." This illustrates how comedians glean ideas from one another.
