Buster and Natalie Talmadge Keaton (above) star in a 1923 silent that is one of the first to integrate comedy into a dramatically coherent storyline.
Period Details, Drama and Laughs: Keaton’s “Our Hospitality”
PRESENTED BY GARY SCOTT BEATTY, PUBLISHER AND EDITOR, MUSKEGONMAGAZINE.COM, AND AUTHOR AND ILLUSTRATOR
Buster Keaton runs afoul of feuding southern families in this leading-edge film.
The film was groundbreaking, integrating gags into the storyline and paying attention to 1830s period detail. The ridiculous looking train was a replica of an early locomotive. The bicycle Keaton rides was a copy of the first bicycle.
Three generations of Keatons are in Our Hospitality. Buster Keaton's father Joe Keaton was the train engineer, Buster Keaton was Willie McKay and his infant son was baby Willie.
Joe Roberts, portraying Virginia's father, suffered a stroke during filming, but insisted on completing the picture. The actor, who had worked with Buster in 16 of his 19 films and Three Ages, died after Our Hospitality was completed.
Our Hospitality is directed by John G. Blystone and Muskegon's own Buster Keaton.
In the early 1900’s performers began to spend summers in the Bluffton area. Buster’s father, Joe, helped found the Actor’s Colony club there and by 1911, over 200 performers resided in the colony. By the early 1920’s, the California film industry lured many vaudevillian performers to Hollywood, including Buster and his family.
These Works are in Public Domain and not Derivative as specified by U.S. copyright law (title 17 of the U.S. Code).
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