Musical accompaniment by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra
Down South to claim his inheritance, New Yorker Willie McKay (Buster Keaton) falls for the beautiful Virginia (played by real-life wife Natalie Talmadge). When she invites him home for dinner, he finds himself in the parlor of the Canfields, the McKays’ sworn enemy in a longstanding feud. Virginia’s brothers have itchy trigger fingers, but lucky for Willie the Canfield code of hospitality dictates no killing of guests, at least inside the house. Announcing the beginning of a new kind of comedy film, Buster Keaton’s Our Hospitality combined meticulous period research with a suspenseful plot whose payoff is thrills and laughter. When it came out it was hard to miss the significance of what Keaton had accomplished, with Variety noting, “it marks a step forward in the production of picture comedies and may be the beginning of the end of the comedy picture without a plot or story that degenerates into a series of gags.” The New York Times put it more simply, “Mr. Keaton has evolved. The Rialto will echo and re-echo with roars of laughter while this film fills the screen.”
Restoration by Lobster Films, Paris
Introduction by Serge Bromberg
Underwritten by Kenneth and Marjorie Sauer
Copresented by the Exploratorium and SF Sketchfest