Its Sunshine Coast Open House weekend so its free entry for everyone. We will be screening “One Week” staring Buster Keaton & Sibil Seely and “Back Stage” staring Rosco ‘fatty’ Arbuckle and Buster Keaton.
Back Stage – 1919 – In this film, Keaton, Arbuckle, Al St. John, and others work back stage as stagehands in a playhouse trying to help out and, in some cases, stay away from the eccentric performers. When the performers rebel and refuse to do the show, the stagehands, along with Arbuckle’s love interest (the assistant of one of the rebelling performers) perform in their stead—including Keaton doing butterflies and one-handed cartwheels in drag! Film duration 26 minutes.
Several Arbuckle shorts use ‘sight gags’ that other comedians elaborated on in other films. In Back Stage, Arbuckle uses the falling wall sequence, where a piece of set falls on him but a window in the set piece allows him to escape being crushed. Keaton used this gag in his first short ‘One Week’.
One Week – 1920 – The story involves a newlywed couple who receive a ‘kit house’ as a wedding gift. The instructions describe how to construct the house by assembling materials in numbered packing crates. A rejected suitor secretly renumbers the packing crates. Hence a ‘flat-pack’ nightmare begins! Film duration 19 minutes.
The doors and bar will open early at 9am for Open House and the movies will screen at 12 noon. Don’t miss out on these two great movies and a great day at the theatre!