College

Buster Keaton in his hilarious spoof of campus life (silent)

Buster Keaton goes back to school and stages a hilarious send-up of university life in College.Keaton stars as Ronald, an idealistic freshman who attends Clayton College in pursuit of higher learning, but finds himself instead embroiled in a war of athletics as he fights for the heart of his beloved coed, Mary (Anne Cornwall).More than he had in any other feature, Keaton stretched the boundaries of solo physical comedy.In a series of unforgettable vignettes, stone-faced Ronald tries his hand as a baseball player, soda, jerk, waiter, coxswain and track star, performing each task with steady determination but with concisely disastrous results.These scenesare especially amazing because in demonstrating Ronald's athletic inadequacies, Keaton reveals a surprising degree of physical prowess and finesse, especially during the film's exhilarating climax.

In The Electric House, Buster turns an ordinary dwelling into an automated funhouse, whose modern conveniences go hilariously haywire at the hands of a jealous rival.Mechanical mayhem is also wrought in the shop of The Blacksmith.For decades a lost film until its recent rediscovery and restoration, Hard Luck (which Keaton Named as his favorite short work follows a suicidal Buster as he makes a final effort a fitting in with society at a swank country club.