Buster Keaton's Short Films

Release dates 1920-1923
Country : USA
Running time : 20-30 mins approx
Genre : Comedy
Starring Buster Keaton
Screenplays by Keaton, various gag writers
Directed by Buster Keaton, Eddie Cline



Best examples : One Week (1920), The High Sign (1921,made 1920), The Playhouse (1921), The Boat (1921), Cops (1922)

Buster Keaton's silent shorts are some of his funniest and most inventive films. The first to be released was One Week (1920) a brilliant short which has a young couple of newlyweds build a prefabricated home. The High Sign (1921) had been the first short Keaton produced but he was dissatisfied with it despite the great stunts and gags. The Playhouse (1921) is a technical marvel in which many Keatons are in frame at once, the result of multiple camera exposures. In The Boat (1921) Buster's craft Damfino is so big it reduces his house to ruins when he pulls it out of the basement while in Cops (1922) he is chased by dozens of policemen. 

The Keaton shorts were made at the studio where Chaplin had made his Mutual films in 1916-17. There were 19 titles, the first 8 were released by Metro, the remainder by First National.