The Play House
About The Play House
Buster Keaton dreams he is everyone in a vaudeville house: conductor, orchestra, actors, audience, and ushers. He wakes as a stagehand. Later he imitates an ape that dines at a table, smokes a cigar, and jumps into the auditorium. A woman faints.
Cast & crew
More about The Play House
Buster Keaton and Eddie Cline wrote and directed it. Joseph M. Schenck produced it. Elgin Lessley photographed it, uncredited on some bills. First National released it on October 6, 1921. Wikipedia gives 22 minutes. The opening multiple exposure used a camera matte of nine metal strips. Lessley rewound the film for each Keaton. A banjo player and a metronome kept the dances in time.
Themes
Making
Lessley shot one strip of the frame at a time, rewinding between each Keaton.
Look
Elgin Lessley exposed the orchestra and the audience in nine passes through a strip matte, rewinding the same film each time.
Technique
Nine exposures on one frame, hand-wound, timed to a banjo and a metronome.
Notes
- Lessley had to hand-wind the camera at a steady speed or the nine exposures would not match.
- Keaton did not explain the matte for decades.
- The ape routine is after the dream: table, cigar, then a jump into the seats.
- A circulating copy runs about 24 minutes.
Scenes
- Keaton conducts, plays, acts, and sits in the audience at once.
- The ape jumps into the auditorium and a woman faints.
