ALL FILMS IN SERIES (EXCEPT FOR SEPT. 25 DOUBLE BILL) ARE DISTRIBUTED BY THE ROHAUER COLLECTION.

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AUGUST 7 MONDAY
(4 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION)

THE GENERAL

(1926) Keaton’s spectacular version of the Civil War’s Great Locomotive Chase reveals his Griffith-level mastery of crowds and action, along with perfectly integrated comedy. “The most insistently moving picture ever made, its climax is the most stunning visual event ever arranged for a film comedy.” – Walter Kerr. “It’s got to be so authentic it hurts.” – Keaton. 1:30, 4:30, 7:30*, 10:20
*Live piano accompaniment by Steve Sterner at 7:30 show.

The Electric House & One Week & The High Sign

Buster shows off his fully automated Electric House (1922), with disastrous results. In One Week (1920), Buster and bride construct a pre-fab house. He tangles with a sinister secret society in the zany High Sign (1921). “The shorts of Buster Keaton are among the greatest pleasures cinema has to offer.” – David Shipman. 3:10, 6:10, 9:10

AUGUST 14 MONDAY
(4 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION)

THE NAVIGATOR

(1924) Keaton’s top money-maker began with the biggest prop of his career: an ocean liner. Pampered playboy Buster is stranded on same with equally helpless airhead Kathryn McGuire. “An absolute visual joy and a triumph of editing.” – Tom Dardis. 2:00*, 4:35, 7:15*, 9:50
*Live piano accompaniment by Steve Sterner at 2:00 and 7:15 shows.

Neighbors & The Haunted House & The Frozen North

In Neighbors (1920), Keaton Sr. & Jr. re-create part of their original, knockabout vaudeville act. Buster’s Haunted House (1921) is spooked by gangsters. In The Frozen North (1922), he casually emerges from a subway kiosk in the middle of nowhere. 3:20, 6:00, 8:35

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AUGUST 21 MONDAY
(3 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION)

SEVEN CHANCES

(1925) Buster learns he’ll inherit 7 million dollars by 7 o’clock that night — provided he’s married! The resulting proposal orgy leads to a chase by 500 (count ’em) bridal-veiled women, topped by a boulder-strewn climax.
1:30*, 4:35, 7:30*, 10:20
*Live piano accompaniment by Steve Sterner at 1:30 and 7:30 shows.

“Lovely and stunningly visual… the chase scenes become increasingly fantastic and elaborate, climaxing in a breathtaking avalanche that must go down as one of the great Keaton gags.”
– Elliott Stein, The Village Voice

“Keaton’s most sustained brilliance.” – David Shipman

THREE AGES & Hard Luck

(1923) Boy battles Wallace Beery for the Girl in the Stone Age, Ancient Rome, and the Jazz Age in a parody of Griffith’s Intolerance, which Life’s Robert Sherwood called “fifty times as funny.” Plus Buster decides to end it all in Hard Luck (1921). 2:45, 5:50, 8:45

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AUGUST 28 MONDAY
(4 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION)

STEAMBOAT BILL, JR.

(1928) Buster is a ukulele-playing collegiate twit who’s a disappointment to his gruff sea-faring father until . . . The big cyclone finale is still a marvel of special effects and physical stamina.
2:00*, 4:50, 7:40*, 10:20
*Live piano accompaniment by Steve Sterner at 2:00 and 7:40 shows.

“Ranks right at the top.” – Pauline Kael

“The cyclonic climax is surely one of the most fantastic dithyrambs of disaster ever committed to film.”
– Rudi Blesh.

The Boat & My Wife’s Relations & Daydreams

The good ship Damfino goes from disaster to disaster in The Boat (1921). My Wife’s Relations (1922) is a comically horrid look at married life. In the surreal Daydreams (1922), letters to his girl back home are juxtaposed with the awful truth. 3:30, 6:20, 9:10

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SEPTEMBER 4 MONDAY
(4 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION)

COLLEGE

(1927) When bookworm Buster falls for a pretty co-ed who only has eyes for jocks, he turns his back on academia and hits the playing fields.
2:00*, 4:50*, 7:30*, 10:10
*Live piano accompaniment by Steve Sterner at 2:00, 4:50 and 7:30 shows.
EXTRA LIVE PIANO SHOW AT 4:50

“Possibly the greatest of Keaton’s features.” – David Shipman

“Keaton’s most startlingly inventive stunts... executed so precisely and with such an air of confident innocence that they are charged with surprise — and probably will be forever.”
– Kael

The Love Nest & The Goat & The Scarecrow

In The Love Nest (1923), love-sick Buster joins a whaling ship with a fearsome captain. In The Scarecrow (1920), gizmo-crazy Keaton gets married on a motorcycle. In The Goat (1921), Buster’s mug shot is plastered all over town. 3:25, 6:15, 8:55

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SEPTEMBER 11 MON
(4 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION)

SHERLOCK JR.

(1924) Projectionist Buster — dreaming he’s an ace detective — jumps right on to the movie screen, finding himself furiously edited from garden bench to city street to cliff — but finally becoming the ace detective of his wildest cinema fantasies.
2:00, 4:30, 7:00*, 9:30
*Live piano accompaniment by Steve Sterner at 7:00 show.

“Wonderfully imaginative...a piece of native American surrealism.”
– Pauline Kael

The Paleface & The Blacksmith & The Balloonatic

Buster The Blacksmith (1922) shoes his horses assembly-line style, while butterfly-chasing entomologist Buster, The Paleface (1921), absentmindedly stumbles into a inter-tribal Indian war. In The Balloonatic (1923), he hits new heights of fantasy. 3:05, 5:35, 8:05, 10:30

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SEPTEMBER 18 MON
(4 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION)

OUR HOSPITALITY

(1923) In 1831, elegant New Yorker Buster travels to Virginia via primitive railroad to claim an inheritance, then plunges into the “Canfield-MacKay” feud. A marvelous evocation of pre-Civil War America, and a family affair with father Joe, Buster Jr. and wife Natalie.
1:45, 4:40, 7:35*, 10:30
*Live piano accompaniment by Steve Sterner at 7:35 show.

“A profusion of brilliant, indescribable visual gags.” – David Shipman.

Cops & The Playhouse & Convict 13

Monstrous hordes of Cops (1922) pursue Buster after he’s mistaken for an anarchist, while as Convict 13 (1920), he escapes from Death Row. In The Playhouse (1921), nine Keatons strut their stuff in a minstrel show. 3:20, 6:15, 9:10

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SEPTEMBER 25 MON
(2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION)

THE CAMERAMAN

(1928) Neophyte newsreel cameraman Buster loses his swimsuit at Coney Island and his heart on the sidewalks of New York, lensing Mott Street Tong Wars while being upstaged by monkey great Jocko (Harold Lloyd’s Kid Brother co-star).
3:45*, 7:00*, 10:10
*Live piano accompaniment by Steve Sterner at 3:45 and 7:00 shows.

“Worth going out of your way for!” – Time Out New York

“A ROMANTIC CHARMER! Keaton proves his genius at creating a parabola-like farce with what looks like a series of straight lines, whether he’s racing across town to face his true love before she realizes that he’s off the phone or getting his tripod levelled during a tong war by flying bullets.”
– Michael Sragow, The New Yorker

“Keaton at the height of his art and master of every detail of silent filmmaking.”
– Rudi Blesh

SPITE MARRIAGE

(1929) In his last silent, Buster is a star-struck pantspresser who marries Broadway diva Dorothy Sebastian on the rebound. Motion Picture Magazine called his desperate struggle to put his limply drunken bride to bed “the funniest scene ever seen on the screen.” 2:05, 5:20, 8:30

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