The Scarecrow
About The Scarecrow
Buster Keaton and Joe Roberts, farmhands in a one-room house rigged with pulleys, share a table that becomes a bed and a string of gadgets that serve breakfast. Both want the farmer's daughter, Sybil Seely. Buster runs from Luke the Dog, whom he thinks is rabid, over walls and through windows, and falls into a hay thresher that shreds his clothes. Her father, played by Buster's father Joe Keaton, catches him like that. Buster steals a scarecrow's outfit. Tying a shoe, he drops to one knee in front of Sybil, and she takes it as a proposal. They flee on a motorcycle, scoop up a minister, and are married as the bike hits a stream, Joe and the farmer still chasing.
Cast & crew
More about The Scarecrow
Keaton and Edward F. Cline wrote and directed the two-reeler. Joseph M. Schenck produced it. Metro Pictures distributed it. Keaton edited. A Salt Lake Tribune notice of 8 November 1920 already had it playing the American Theatre; the date usually given for release is 22 December 1920.
Themes
Making
The opening is a chain of labor-saving devices in a single room, played so that one pull sets off the next. The second half leaves the house for the dog, the thresher, the scarecrow, and the motorcycle wedding.
Reviews
The Salt Lake Tribune of 8 November 1920, during the American Theatre run, said The Scarecrow had been called the best comedy Keaton had made and one of the best of its kind on the screen.
Look
Elgin Lessley photographed it. Keaton called Lessley the human metronome because he could crank at whatever speed was asked and hold it.
Preservation
Prints survive, including a two-reel copy in circulation from the Keaton shorts.
Notes
- Luke the Dog was Roscoe Arbuckle's dog, carried over from the Comique shorts.
- Joe Keaton, Buster's father, plays the farmer. Cline has an uncredited bit as a hit-and-run truck driver.
- Sybil Seely plays the daughter. She was in several Keaton shorts that year, including One Week.
- The Salt Lake Tribune called it the best comedy Keaton had made.
- The house gags are one room: strings for the salt and pepper, a phonograph, and a table that flips into a bed.
- Keaton took over the old Comique studio in Hollywood in 1920 and kept Elgin Lessley as cameraman.
Scenes
- Breakfast in the one-room house, with the table collapsing into a bed and the other gadgets firing in order.
- Buster drops into the hay thresher and comes out in shreds.
- Kneeling to tie his shoe, he is taken for a man proposing.
- A minister is scooped onto the motorcycle and marries them as they hit the stream.
Also available
- Internet Archive (BusterKeatonthescarecrow)
