One Week (1920 film)

One Week
Title card
Directed by	Edward F. Cline Buster Keaton
Produced by	Joseph M. Schenck
Written by	Edward F. Cline Buster Keaton
Starring	Buster Keaton Sybil Seely Joe Roberts Lon Chaney[citation needed]
Cinematography	Elgin Lessley
Editing by	Buster Keaton
Distributed by	Metro Pictures
Release date(s)	September 1, 1920[1]
Running time	19 minutes
Country	United States
Language	Silent film English intertitles

One Week is a 1920 short comedy film starring comedian Buster Keaton, the first film to be released made by Keaton on his own; Keaton had worked with Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle for a number of years. The film was written and directed by Keaton and Edward F. Cline, and runs for 19 minutes. Sybil Seely co-stars. The High Sign had been filmed prior to One Week, but Keaton considered it an inferior effort to debut with, and released it the following year.

Guitarist Bill Frisell released a soundtrack to the movie in 1995 on his album The High Sign/One Week.

In 2008, One Week was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".^[2]

Plot

Keaton admires his build-it-yourself house

One Week

The story involves two newlyweds, Keaton and Seely, who receive a build-it-yourself house as a wedding gift. The house can be built, supposedly, in "one week". A rejected suitor secretly re-numbers packing crates. The movie recounts Keaton's struggle to assemble the house according to this new "arrangement". The end result is depicted in the picture. As if this weren't enough, Keaton finds he has built his house on the wrong site and has to move it. The movie reaches its tense climax when the house becomes stuck on railroad tracks. Keaton and Seely try to move it out the way of an oncoming train, which eventually passes on the neighboring track. As the couple look relived, the house is immediately struck and demolished by another train coming the other way. Keaton stares at the scene, places a 'For Sale' sign with the heap (attaching the building instructions) and walks off with Seely.

The New York Times movie review said, "One Week, a Buster Keaton work, has more fun in it than most slap-stick, trick-property comedies."^[3]

Cast

• Buster Keaton as the groom
• Sybil Seely as the bride
• Joe Roberts as piano mover

Miscellany

• Many special effects, such as the house spinning around during a storm and the train collision, were filmed as they occurred and were not model work.
• The mischievous rival is an unknown actor. Joe Roberts has a brief bit as a strong-man piano mover.
• Sybil Seely was 18 years old when she made this movie. She starred in 18 movies, the last one in 1922. She died in 1984.

See also

• Buster Keaton filmography

References

1. ^ Knopf, Robert (2 August 1999). The theater and cinema of Buster Keaton. Princeton University Press. p. 181. ISBN 9780691004426. http://books.google.com/books?id=fU5qDx7tawIC&pg=PA181. Retrieved 21 October 2010. 
2. ^ Littleton, Cynthia (December 30, 2008). "'Terminator' joins Film Registry". Variety. http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117997810.html?categoryid=13&cs=1. 
3. ^ "The Screen", New York Times: 22, October 25, 1920 

External links

• One Week at the Internet Movie Database
• One Week at AllRovi
• Free download on the Internet Archive