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The Play House (1921) More at IMDbPro »

Overview

User Rating:
8.1/10   1,160 votes
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Director:
Buster Keaton
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Writers:
Edward F. Cline (writer)
Buster Keaton (writer)
Contact:
View company contact information for The Play House on IMDbPro.
Release Date:
6 October 1921 (USA) more
Genre:
Short | Comedy | Fantasy more
Plot:
The opening scene, a dream sequence prior to the vaudeville routines which follow, is what makes this film famous... more | add synopsis
Plot Keywords:
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User Comments:
Masterpiece of the Absurd. more (14 total)

Cast

  (in credits order) (verified as complete)

Buster Keaton ... Audience / Orchestra / Mr. Brown - First Minstrel / Second Minstrel / Interctors / Stagehand
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Edward F. Cline ... Orangutan trainer (uncredited)
Virginia Fox ... Twin (uncredited)
Joe Roberts ... Actor-Stage Manager (uncredited)
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Directed by
Buster Keaton 
Edward F. Cline (uncredited)
 
Writing credits
(in alphabetical order)
Edward F. Cline  writer
Buster Keaton  writer

Produced by
Joseph M. Schenck .... producer (uncredited)
 
Original Music by
Robert Israel (1995)
 
Cinematography by
Elgin Lessley (uncredited)
 
Film Editing by
Buster Keaton (uncredited)
 
Music Department
Robert Israel .... musical director (1995 edition)
 
Other crew
Fred Gabourie .... technical director (uncredited)
Joseph M. Schenck .... presenter (uncredited)
 
Crew verified as complete


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Additional Details

Parents Guide:
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Runtime:
22 min | Spain:18 min | USA:20 min (2005 DVD release)
Country:
USA
Color:
Black and White
Aspect Ratio:
1.33 : 1 more
Sound Mix:
Silent
Certification:
UK:U | Canada:G (Ontario) | Argentina:Atp | Spain:T
Company:
Joseph M. Schenck Productions more

Fun Stuff

Trivia:
Buster Keaton's stunts are tame in this movie, compared to his usual rugged and demanding stunt work, because he was recovering from a broken ankle. more
Goofs:
Continuity: Elegant Elderly Lady Buster is wearing long evening gloves, but when she reaches down to pick the lollipop off her lap, she is not wearing gloves. more
Quotes:
Man in Audience: This fellow Keaton seems to be the whole show. more
Movie Connections:
Referenced in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007) more

FAQ

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User Comments

   (Comment on this title)
8 out of 9 people found the following comment useful.
Masterpiece of the Absurd., 6 October 1999
Author: Darragh O' Donoghue (hitch1899_@hotmail.com) from Dublin, Ireland

This has to be one of the strangest, most daring films ever made by a major Hollywood studio, and surely the funniest and most perceptive study of madness in all cinema. The first ten minutes are a breathtaking display of bewildering surrealist magic. Buster Keaton buys a ticket for a variety show. Buster Keaton conducts an orchestra of Buster Keatons, defeated by their hostile instruments. An art-deco line of Buster Keaton minstrels have a calm discussion, while pairs of male and female Buster Keatons make up the audience, restless, spiteful and belligerant.

This is stunning cinema in any language (arf), and a supreme visualisation of mental breakdown, distorted personality, megalomania, and the most terrifying anxieties. It is also an hilarious pre-empting of the auteur theory - the elaborate playbill reveals Buster Keaton to be responsible for EVERYTHING, from scenario to lighting - this monopoly of creativity leads to chaos, madness, fragmentation and estrangement.

As in so many of Keaton's films, this remarkable fantasy is shown to be the dream of a lowly, bullied man, this time a theatrical hand. Far from diminishing the film's dreamlike structure, this revelation intensifies it. An astonishing series of variations on the line between art and life, dream and reality ensues, an argument which descends into ever-increasing spirals of confusion and disintegration.

Some of Keaton's best comic set-pieces follow, all hilarious in themselves, yet underlining the melancholy and fears of Buster himself - be he ordinary man or isolated genius. Life can never remain stable for him, his personality is shot to pieces - whether through existential crises or booze is unclear; like Gulliver in Houyhnhm land, his humanity is stripped to the level of bestiality - a very funny, subversive sequence, which is as despairing as the end of NIGHTMARE ALLEY.

The supposedly redemptive love interest is a bewildering, tormenting game on Buster, as he repeatedly fails to remember which twin is his fiancee. The continually collapsing sets are a thematically rich, Usher(playhouse, geddit?)-like representation of Buster's fragile mind. To universalise the genius of Buster Keaton is to belittle and emasculate him. He is like us only because his trauma is so particular.

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