Hard Luck

This film was considered to be Buster Keaton's major lost film for over 60 years until it was discovered in 1987. The recovered print had dozens of shots and scenes and gags missing throughout the film, making many of the extant gags non-understandable, including the final two gags missing entirely: the pool dive, which Keaton said got his biggest laugh at the time it was originally released, and the Chinese family. The print was preserved in the Raymond Rohauer Collection and later released on home video.

Over a decade later a tinted print was discovered complete except for the final Chinese family scene. That final scene was discovered in a badly degraded Russian copy. The now complete film, with tinting, was restored by Lobster Films in 2001 and released on DVD.

In 2015 the tinting was restored to the original B&W, and new completely rewritten intertitles were substituted throughout with many new ones added, and this version was re-released on Blu-Ray.

Buster steps off a curb by a narrow street with no streetcar tracks, into a wide street with an approaching streetcar.

Featured in Buster Keaton: A Hard Act to Follow (1987)