The Electric House
About The Electric House
Three graduates drop their diplomas and pick up the wrong ones. Buster Keaton, a botany student, is left holding an electrical-engineering degree and is hired to wire a house. He installs an escalator, a bed that folds into the wall, a bathtub that rolls in, and a pool that drains on a lever. The real engineer comes back and rewires the gadgets. The escalator throws the homeowner, Joe Roberts, out a window into the pool. Keaton is fired, ties a rock to his neck, and jumps in. The girl drains the pool. He is spat out of a sewer pipe beside the engineer.
Cast & crew
More about The Electric House
Keaton and Edward F. Cline wrote and directed. Joseph M. Schenck produced. Elgin Lessley photographed it. First National released it on 16 October 1922. Wikipedia times the short at 22 minutes. During a 1920 attempt, Keaton broke an ankle on the electric staircase. That version was abandoned. The surviving film is the reshoot. No 1920 footage is known.
Themes
Making
The staircase gag that broke Keaton's ankle in 1920 is in the finished film as an escalator that will not stop. He rebuilt the house and shot the short again.
Look
Elgin Lessley shot the wired rooms, the escalator, and the pool.
Preservation
The 1922 reshoot survives. The 1920 footage does not. Copies are on the Internet Archive and Wikimedia Commons.
Notes
- Virginia Fox plays the girl. Steve Murphy plays the real engineer. Joe Roberts plays the homeowner.
- Joe Keaton, Myra Keaton, and Louise Keaton appear as extras.
- Wikidata also lists running times of 23 minutes and 19 minutes.
- A book-delivery track in the library is one of the gadgets Keaton shows Roberts before the escalator fails.
Scenes
- The escalator fires Roberts through a window into the pool.
- Keaton jumps in with a rock on a rope. The girl drains the water and he comes out a drainpipe.
Also available
- Internet Archive (TheElectricHouse)
- Wikimedia Commons (The Electric House (1922) by Buster Keaton and Edward F. Cline.webm)
