The Electric House

A lot of Keaton's comedies feature a scene or two filled with creative and wacky gadgets that make you laugh and make you marvel at his inventiveness, all at the same time. This short comedy is entirely devoted to this kind of eccentric gadgetry, and while that means there isn't much of a plot, it's fun to watch. There's a subtle, funny mix-up at the beginning that results in Buster being entrusted with filling up a man's house with whatever electronic devices he can think of, and he really goes to it. "The Electric House" is a funny place to visit.

It's funny; the other day I watched Buster Keaton's "College," which starts off with a high school graduation. My next Keaton movie, this one, begins with a college ceremony. Yes, once again, the graduates look more like their fathers than 22- year-old people.

The degrees get mixed up somehow and the Dean thinks Buster has graduated with an Electrical Engineering degree and hires him to wire his house while he and the family go on vacation. Buster knows nothing about that sort of thing but reads a quick how-to-do-it book. The next thing we know, we see the house with all the gadgets.

This was pretty amazing stuff. I didn't think they even had the technology in the early '20s to do this sort of thing. Shows you what I know. Anyway, we see all kinds of James Bond-type tricks from swimming pools that drain and refill within seconds to mechanical billiard tables to train tracks feeding the family. There too many of these crazy things (a bathroom on tracks going right to the bed was one of my favorites!) to list them all.

Suffice to say they are fun to watch. Unfortunately, the real engineer gets wind of what happened, sneaks into the house and sabotages the gadgets while the family is showing them off to guests. Unfortunately (again), justice is not served in this film....or is it? There's a strange ending to this film, too, and makes me wonder if Buster wasn't a bit suicidal. I guess not, since he lived a fairly long time.

There is no real plot in here; just gags....which is fine for a short film, except I found this was so fast-paced in the first half that by the 15-minute mark it seemed almost too long, if that's possible. It seemed like a long 22 minutes.

In addition to the remarkable stunt-work that makes his films unique, Buster Keaton often employed the odd mechanical gadget, and there's certainly much amusement to be found in his technical creativity. 'The Electric House' is a 20-minute short film that dedicates itself entirely to Keaton's gadgets, as a young botany graduate is mistakenly hired as an electrical engineer to wire up a new home. After perusing a book entitled "Electricity Made Easy," Keaton develops a selection of clever and useful household contraptions, including an escalator, a railway system that delivers food to the dinner table, a quick-emptying and re-filling outdoor pool and a self-operating billiards table. Some of the mechanical devices don't quite work as planned, but generally Keaton has done a fair job, and he has certainly invented a few mechanisms that I wouldn't mind having in my own home (assuming, of course, that they operated as they were supposed to).

However, the begrudging electrical engineering graduate who missed out on the job arrives at the new electric house to wreak havoc and achieve his revenge. From the moment he starts moving about wires, the contraptions inside the home begin to go crazy, and poor Keaton is completely at their mercy, unable to understand why his inventions have gone haywire. Of course, there are a few gags that don't quite work {such as Keaton thinking he's seen a ghost}, and the editing is a little choppy at times, but it's all in such good fun that you won't feel disappointed. A lot of amusement is derived from something as simple as an escalator {which was then a relatively new invention, only 25 years or so years old}, with Keaton, in one particularly funny sequence, trying to haul a bulky suitcase up the "stairs" and bafflingly wondering why he's making such little progress.

As the hapless hero, Keaton takes his fair share of beatings from the mechanical devices {in fact, production had to be delayed because he broke his ankle after it got caught in the escalator}, but the other members of the household don't escape unscathed. Joe Roberts plays the disgruntled homeowner whose house is equipped with mischievous gadgetry, and he gets acquainted with the property's swimming pool on at least two entertaining occasions. Though Keaton has certainly done funnier comedic shorts, 'The Electric House (1922)' is an amusing way to pass 20 minutes, and the star's undeniable enthusiasm for slapstick comedy makes his work always worth a watch.

In 1936, Charlie Chaplin released his classic "Modern Times", in which, among other things, he poked fun at unnecessary mechanical gadgets, such as the hilarious 'eating machine'. Well, back in 1922, Buster Keaton had released his comparable satire of marginally useful new gadgets for houses, which seemed useful at first, but then showed their downside when not used properly........In the beginning, Buster is shown graduating from college, having majored in botany, but, with a mix-up in the distribution of diplomas, his said he majored in electrical engineering. It happened that the dean(Joe Roberts) announced that he wanted someone to electrify his house. Buster volunteered and was accepted, after the real graduate in electrical engineering was rejected, because his diploma said he graduated in manicuring. Buster found a manual on electrical wiring, and went to work while the dean and his daughter(played by Virginia Fox) went on a 2 week vacation. He came up with some interesting inventions, most controlled by pushing buttons. I won't enumerate these gadgets, as I want you to discover them yourself. When the real electrical engineer(played by Steve Murphy) somehow sneaked into the house, found the control room, and started switching wires and pulling switches, often the gadgets went haywire, providing humor. To me, this film is as entertaining as Keaton's much acclaimed "Week One", released 2 years earlier.

Buster Keaton stars as botany major who is mistaken as electrical engineer, and who is hired to wire up a house with the newest gadgets, while the owner of the house is on a vacation with his family. After returning home Buster starts to familiarize the house owners with new gadgets. But then Buster's big rival, the guy who got robbed of his job, arrives and starts to sabotage the house, and soon the chaos escalates.

Most of the gags feature some of the electrical gadgets, rather than neck breaking stunts, but still the film is funny as the jokes are as inventive as the electrical systems of the house.