Our Hospitality
About Our Hospitality
Willie McKay leaves New York for the family house in the Appalachians and meets Virginia Canfield on the train. Their families, the Canfields and the McKays, have a killing feud on the Hatfield-McCoy pattern. Once he is a guest under their roof they will not shoot him. The moment he steps outside, they will. He spends the visit trying not to leave, and ends it on a river that goes over a fall. Buster Keaton plays Willie. Natalie Talmadge plays Virginia. Joe Roberts plays her father.
Cast & crew
More about Our Hospitality
Keaton directed with John G. Blystone. Joseph M. Schenck produced. Clyde Bruckman, Jean Havez, and Joseph A. Mitchell wrote it. Gordon Jennings is the cinematographer on the record. Metro Pictures released it on November 19, 1923. The listed length is 64 minutes. The recorded gross is over $500,000. Joe Keaton, Buster's father, is in the cast. A copy is on the Internet Archive as OurHospitality_29.
Themes
Look
Gordon Jennings is credited. The river and the falls were shot in California.
Preservation
A print survives.
Notes
- The feud rule is the joke: a guest is safe only indoors.
- Talmadge was Keaton's wife. She plays Virginia.
- Roberts died the next year. This is one of his last Keaton parts.
- The train at the start is a copy of an early Stephenson-style engine, built for the film.
Scenes
- They cannot shoot him while he is in the house, so he will not go out.
- He and Virginia hang over the falls on a rope.
Also available
- Internet Archive (OurHospitality_29)
