MOVIE DESCRIPTION:

Two of Buster Keaton's best films, Our Hospitality and Sherlock Jr., come to DVD with this release from Image. The films are presented in their original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.33:1. The English soundtracks are rendered in Dolby Digital Mono. There are neither subtitles nor closed captions on this release. There are no supplemental materials of any consequence, but that should not keep anyone away from these classic motion picture comedies. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi

DVD FEATURES:

• Number of Discs: 1
• Screen: Black and White

AWARDS

• Library of Congress

•     Won U.S. National Film Registry - 1990

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

• Cast:

  
       Buster Keaton - The Boy/Sherlock Jr.
       Kathryn McGuire - The Girl
       Joe Keaton - Lem Doolittle
       Buster Keaton, Jr. - Willie as a baby
       Erwin Connelly - Villain's Henchman
       Horace Morgan - Conspirator
       George Davis - Conspirator
       Craig Ward - Lee Canfield
       Ralph Bushman - Clayton Canfield
       Ed Coxen - John McKay
       Jean Dumas - Mrs. McKay
       Monte Collins - Rev. Benjamin Dorsey
       James Duffy - Sam Gardner
       Ford West

• Director:

  John G. Blystone, Buster Keaton

• Producer:

  Joseph M. Schenck

• Screenwriter:

  Jean Havez, Clyde Bruckman, Joseph Mitchell

• Cinematographer:

  Gordon Jennings, Elgin Lessley, Byron Houck

• Costume Designer:

  Walter Israel, Claire West

• Technical Director:

  Fred Gabourie

REVIEWS:

• Considered one of Buster Keaton's greatest works, and his most (gasp) avant-garde feature, Sherlock Jr. centers on movie illusion itself, hilariously filtered through the dreams of Keaton's sad-sack projectionist. Showcasing both Keaton's interest in filmmaking technique and his repertoire of vaudeville physical gags, the film comically riffs on such visual tricks as superimpositions and editing, as a ghostly "Keaton" exits his sleeping body and walks into the screen, only to face repeated peril as one background cuts to another. The movie he finally joins becomes, naturally, an ideal fantasy world in which Keaton, as a suave detective, phlegmatically rights the wrongs that he has just suffered in reality. French director Rene Clair likened Sherlock Jr. to Luigi Pirandello's classic self-reflexive play, Six Characters in Search of an Author, for its surreal take on the relationship between viewer and medium. Should this comparison put in question Keaton's overriding desire to create comic mass entertainment, Sherlock Jr. also contains the railroad stunt that literally broke Keaton's neck. Combining comic physical prowess with smart visual wit, Sherlock Jr. confirms Keaton's place as the most imaginatively cinematic of the silent film comics, and it inspired Woody Allen's fantasy, The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), as well as countless other directors and sequences. ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi
• Though it was not his first multi-reel movie, Buster Keaton hit his feature-length stride with this period comedy. Set in the carefully recreated 1831 South and shot on location near Lake Tahoe, the film turned the legendary feud between the Hatfields and the McCoys (re-named the Canfields and the McKays) into a send-up of Southern politeness. Two exterior sequences became vintage Keaton. Precisely duplicating one of the first-ever trains (the "Stephenson Rocket") and hiring his vaudevillian father to play the engineer, Keaton turned the crudeness of early train travel into a dreamlike and hilarious trip southward over rough yet beautiful forested terrain. And the final river rescue showcased Keaton's agility, as he snatches his beloved (played by then-wife Natalie Talmadge) from a waterfall; it also inadvertently revealed the risks of Keaton's drive for authenticity, as he almost drowned on camera. The potentially lethal work paid off, as Our Hospitality became a box office hit and confirmed Keaton's talent for integrating comedy into a larger narrative rather than simply stringing together gags. ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi