Buster Keatons Nacht des Inferno

Since the haunted house is only 1/3 of the movie, the title of the movie should have been The Bank Teller which Buster Keaton portrayed. Most of the movie takes place in the bank which Keaton operated and was later accused of robbing. Or, the movie should have been called Sticky Situation since the biggest laughs of the movie came when Keaton gets glue all over him and the money from the bank. Although the movie's climax is the haunted house, much of the physical comedy happens way before the movie's closing. An interesting look into heaven and hell as Keaton imagines dying and riding the stairway and slide to heaven and then hell. A good Keaton classic, The Haunted House has several moments that are funny and very enjoyable.

A clumsy bank employee, the bank manager and his daughter, some bank robbers, some police and the Daredevil Theatrical Troupe, who've just been booed off stage during their production of Faust, all collide in a Haunted House which the bank robbers use as their hideout.

So many priceless moments, some good laugh-out-louders, and 100% great fun. Another really great short comedy from Buster Keaton.

Highlights: as usual, the ending! Buster running past camera, looking directly into it, the whole glue sequence, the self-referential theatrical production and more i can't remember right now... Not that i've ever seen a Keaton movie i didn't like, but i recommend this one too!

There's never a dull moment in this Buster Keaton two-reeler, "The Haunted House." From Keaton making a mess as a bank teller, inadvertently stopping a robbery in the process, to his hiding from the police in the titular haunted house, where he stumbles across some more crooks, who've disguised themselves as ghouls and engineered the house with a staircase that turns into a slide. My favorites Keaton vehicles tend to be those where the humor is based self-reflexively in cinema, including "The Playhouse" (1921), "The Frozen North" (1922), "Sherlock Jr." (1924) and "The Cameraman" (1928). A couple gags here have a similar foundation. The head baddie explains the staircase trap in a kind of hypothetical vision where we see police being foiled by the trick. There's a play-within-the-play of "Faust," where Mephistopheles is chased off the stage to the haunted house by a rioting audience. And there's the dream/hallucination scene that references the other staircase and the other devil. Clever.

Note: Recently, I've been investigating the origins of the old dark house subgenre on screen, which is how I came upon reviewing this film. Although others have cited it as an early instance of such pictures, I'm not so sure. There's a haunted house and cash hidden in it, I guess, but none of the other tropes found in such films as "One Exciting Night" (1922), "The Monster" (1925), "The Bat" (1926), "The Cat and the Canary" (1927), "The Bat Whispers" (1930), "The Old Dark House" (1932) and even fellow silent comedian Harold Lloyd's "Haunted Spooks" (1920). I suppose the distinction between "old dark house" and "haunted house" is slight, though.

Haunted House, The (1921)

*** (out of 4)

Funny Buster Keaton two-reeler has him playing a bank clerk who gets accused of robbing his own bank even though he was actually preventing one. This causes him to run off and duck into a house, which just happens to be rigged by some crooks so that whoever enters will think it's haunted. This certainly isn't one of Keaton's greatest pictures but I think it's a pretty good one that is at least pleasant enough and features enough funny moments to where it would be a good introduction for someone not familiar with the legends work. The first portion of the film has some of the best gags including the highlight, which has Keaton accidentally sticking his fingers into some glue while trying to count out money and give it to people. This ends up with a pretty funny sequence where there's money all over the place and getting stuck to whoever tries to touch it. The horror elements happen in the second portion of the film and this here is where the slapstick really comes into play. Poor Keaton sees a wide range of creatures including skeleton men, ghosts and even a Satan-like character and this of course has him taking many falls. The highlight of this house is a flight of stairs that turn into a slick slope whenever someone tries walking up or down them. THE HAUNTED HOUSE runs a very quick 20-minutes and there are enough laughs to where even those who don't care for silents should at least have a good time.

Buster Keaton plays a bank clerk who foils a team of bank robbers using a supposedly haunted house to evade capture by the police. An odd film of two distinct halves: a painfully protracted - and largely unfunny - sequence in which Keaton inadvertently glues himself to masses of banknotes eventually gives way to a breathtakingly funny second half in which he strays into the haunted house of the title. You will be astounded by the number of laughs the little genius can get out of a flight of collapsible stairs...