Buster Keaton's Shorts Quiz - Match the description with two-reeler | People Themed

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. Newlyweds Buster and Sybil are gifted with a build-your-own house kit, but Buster's love rival ensures that everything goes wrong. In what film do we see the first days of married life turn into a train wreck?

Answer: One Week

Buster and Sybil are gifted a vacant lot and a kit to build a house. The only instructions are to put the house up according to the numbers on the boxes of materials. Since Hank changed the numbers, the house is a hot mess by the time they're done with it. They slog along, though, even holding a housewarming party that turns into a swirling eddy of chaos.

The scene of the newlyweds getting straight to work is echoed in "Up," when Karl and Ellie don't even change out of their wedding clothes before they pick up their tools.

Handy Hank changes the numbers on the boxes, so the house ends up off-kilter. Things go downhill from there for Buster and Sybil.

Sybil breaks the fourth wall in her bathtub scene, prompting the cameraman to cover the lens while she retrieves her dropped bar of soap. We also get a smaller-scale work-up to the famous stunt in "Steamboat Bill Jr." when the wall falls down and Buster is saved by a handy window opening.

This is the first independent Keaton film, released in 1920. He starts off with a bang.

2. In this Romeo and Juliet farce, Buster works with acrobats to fetch his beloved away from her disapproving father. No mere fence can keep them apart.

Answer: Neighbors

Buster and the girl next door communicate by passing notes back and forth through a hole in the fence between their back yards. Buster's father intercepts a note and learns of the romance. Both families strongly oppose the match, leading to a lot of sneaking and mishaps as the couple struggle to wed.

Keaton released this, his third short, in 1920. Buster's real father, Joe Keaton, plays his father in this early work. His neighbor and vaudeville friend Joe "Big Joe" Roberts plays the girl's father.

3. Buster and Sybil have two little boys in matching porkpie hats. Buster has built them a new nautical home. Things seem to pick up after an initial disaster, but even Mother Nature seems to be out to get the little family. Will they drown when Buster's construction founders?

Answer: The Boat

This film, released in 1921, is thought of as a sequel to "One Week". In it, Buster moves his family into a homemade boat. Other than Sybil's questionable cooking, everything seems to go okay once they're launched and out at sea. Then a storm hits and brings disaster.

"The Boat" features the famous shot where Keaton launches his boat only to have it go straight to the bottom. Keaton built two boats -- one to float and one to sink. He wasn't prepared for how hard it is to get a boat to go down quickly and ended up having to winch it to the lake bottom.

4. Getting lost in translation in a courtroom lands Buster with an unintended bride. How can he deal with his disapproving and unwanted in-laws?

Answer: My Wife's Relations

When Buster is brought to before a judge with a large, rather domineering Polish woman, neither of them understands the questions the judge asks them. Upon learning that they're married, off they go to the bride's house, where Buster is found sorely wanting by her father and brothers. He tries to make the best of things but it's an uphill battle.

This film was released in 1922, after Buster's marriage to Natalie Talmadge. Critics and fans believe it expresses his frustration with his in-laws, who moved in with the young couple.

5. Buster gets the wrong diploma. As a result, he gets a job he can't handle. Can he escape his ineptly automated nightmare?

Answer: The Electric House

Buster is accidentally given a degree in electrical engineering when he'd actually studied botany. As a result he gets hired to modernize a house. Since he doesn't really know what he's doing, his upgrades consistently go wrong.

This film really gave Buster the opportunity to indulge his passion for tinkering. However, like his screen self he got in a bit over his head and broke his ankle on his homemade escalator.

"The Electric House" was released in 1922.

6. Up to nine Busters steal the show -- but it's only a dream. He's not the star but merely a stagehand.

Answer: The Playhouse

Buster the stagehand tries his best to keep a vaudeville show running, with very mixed results. In the mean time, he falls in love with an identical twin.

Modern sensibilities will be offended by the minstrel-show scene, but we can still admire the in-camera special effects that allow Buster to be husband and wife, grandma and grandson, and a pair of dancers in the introductory dream sequence. Keaton himself built the shutter-box for the camera. His trusty cameraman and "human metronome" Elgin Lessley cranked, back-cranked, and re-cranked to put more than one Buster on the same strip of film.

"The Playhouse" was released in 1921.

7. A wrong turn into a parade goes wrong when Buster catches a bomb thrown by an anarchist. Now instead of just trying to impress his beloved, he's running for his life.

Answer: Cops

Challenged to make something of himself, Buster thinks he's bought a family's furniture when he's actually been hired to move it. A wrong turn lands him in the middle of a police parade. Buster handles this with aplomb until an anarchist throws a bomb that lands next to him. Buster lights a cigarette from the fuse and tosses the bomb aside only to have it explode. Blamed for the disaster, Buster flees for his life.

The famous chase includes Buster grabbing a passing car and fluttering behind it like a pennant. He'd done a similar stunt in "The Bell Boy", when Roscoe Arbuckle grabbed him and yanked him off-camera.

"Cops" was released in 1922.

8. Buster loves Sybil, but when a mishap with farm equipment leaves him unclad, Sybil's farmer father is determined to catch him. His first hiding place gives the movie its name.

Answer: The Scarecrow

The opening scene, featuring the house where everything is all in one room, segues into a love rivalry between the roommates for the farmer's daughter.
Fortunately for Buster, Sybil returns his affection, but her father does not approve. Attempts to hide only work briefly, leaving Buster to try another escape. The chase leads Buster back to Sybil.

Once again, real-life father Joe Keaton has a role, this time as Sybil's dad.

Some fans think of this as a prequel to "One Week," but for that to work, Sybil and Buster would have to get married twice, since they are wed by the end of "The Scarecrow".

"The Scarecrow" was released in 1920.

9. Nothing goes right for Buster, not even his attempts to end his lonesome life. He decides to try hunting an elusive critter instead, but even that goes wrong. Eventually things turn around in an unexpected way.

Answer: Hard Luck

Luckless Buster starts the film with one failed suicide attempt after the other. Finally, he develops other goals but they fail just as spectacularly as his suicide attempts.

The film really doesn't have much of a plot. It's more a vehicle for gags in which one thing after the other goes wrong.

I won't give away the ending, but Keaton said it got him his biggest laugh ever. For years it had been considered lost, and copies of the movie would end with different ways to tell the audience this. A print with the final gag was discovered in Russia, so this last scene is included in more recent releases.

"Hard Luck" was released in 1921.

10. A lowly bank teller flees to a booby-trapped domicile where he encounters a costumed acting troupe. Which film puts Buster on a stairway to Heaven?

Answer: The Haunted House

When Buster the Bank Teller tries to thwart a robbery, he chases the bad guys into a house already occupied by actors in spooky garb. One wall of the house is gone as the audience follows Buster, the actors, and the robbers in a chase through one room after another as Buster uses the booby traps to escape.

Keaton would use the missing wall again in "Sherlock Jr." In that feature film, a wall fades away to allow the viewer to see an entire stunt beginning to end.

"The Haunted House" was released in 1921.

Source: Author ubermom

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Buster Keaton's Shorts Trivia Quiz

Match the description with two-reeler

After Roscoe Arbuckle started doing feature films, he left Buster Keaton in charge of the old Comique Studio. Buster renamed it after himself and began releasing short films. Match the description with the movie.

Questions		Choices
1. Newlyweds Buster and Sybil are gifted with a build-your-own house kit, but Buster's love rival ensures that everything goes wrong. In what film do we see the first days of married life turn into a train wreck?		The Electric House
2. In this Romeo and Juliet farce, Buster works with acrobats to fetch his beloved away from her disapproving father. No mere fence can keep them apart.		The Playhouse
3. Buster and Sybil have two little boys in matching porkpie hats. Buster has built them a new nautical home. Things seem to pick up after an initial disaster, but even Mother Nature seems to be out to get the little family. Will they drown when Buster's construction founders?		Hard Luck
4. Getting lost in translation in a courtroom lands Buster with an unintended bride. How can he deal with his disapproving and unwanted in-laws?		My Wife's Relations
5. Buster gets the wrong diploma. As a result, he gets a job he can't handle. Can he escape his ineptly automated nightmare?		Cops
6. Up to nine Busters steal the show -- but it's only a dream. He's not the star but merely a stagehand.		Neighbors
7. A wrong turn into a parade goes wrong when Buster catches a bomb thrown by an anarchist. Now instead of just trying to impress his beloved, he's running for his life.		The Boat
8. Buster loves Sybil, but when a mishap with farm equipment leaves him unclad, Sybil's farmer father is determined to catch him. His first hiding place gives the movie its name.		The Haunted House
9. Nothing goes right for Buster, not even his attempts to end his lonesome life. He decides to try hunting an elusive critter instead, but even that goes wrong. Eventually things turn around in an unexpected way.		One Week
10. A lowly bank teller flees to a booby-trapped domicile where he encounters a costumed acting troupe. Which film puts Buster on a stairway to Heaven?		The Scarecrow