More Discoveries from the new version of The Blacksmith

[SilentEchoes57]

Susan Buhrman has found newspaper accounts that show Buster Keaton first finished filming The Blacksmith in August/Septemeber 1921, which received a bad review in the January 1922 issue of Photoplay Magazine. The movie was pulled from the release schedule, and not formally released in the US until July 21, 1922.

This suggests that the new version of the film found by Fernando Pena was the version completed in 1921, that was quickly shipped overseas, and never returned to the United States. Thereafter, following the early negative response to the film and/or other problems, the movie was pulled from release for several months to be re-worked, and officially released domestically in July 1922.

My next post shows more discoveries from the new version of the film, and shows, visually, how Keaton halted production of the film for as long as 8-9 months.

http://silentlocations.wordpress.com/20 ... surprises/

Cheers, John

[Richard Warner]

Once again, truly fascinating stuff! Looking forward to Part 3, John.

Richard Warner

[Brooksie]

It looks like we'll need to rewrite most of Keaton's 1921; it was already a crucial period, but now it seems even more so. You could even go so far to say it was his formative year, particularly the middle.

The accepted wisdom was that this was a fairly quiet time, during which Buster had a long rest after being injured during the shooting of The Electric House in early 1921. It was also suggested that his next production, The Playhouse (released October 1921) was deliberately light on stunts to aid his recovery. Instead, he was filming much of The Blacksmith, which I don't recall being any less stunt-driven than usual. In retrospect, it would be highly out of character for Keaton to go easy on himself.

The snafu also gives an additional reason for the release of The High Sign: at the time, Keaton had not one but two productions on ice, the unfinished Electric House AND The Blacksmith. It also explains the anomaly of Keaton seemingly establishing Eddie Cline as his director (or co-director) of choice, then switching back to Mal St Clair for one film before returning to Cline. In fact, the St Clair films were shot back-to-back. Perhaps it was even the failure of the first version of The Blacksmith that led to Keaton looking for a new collaborator.

A number of other important things happened to Buster during mid-1921: he was married to Natalie Talmadge, he stopped releasing through Metro, and he also hired Fred Gabourie, who would prove so important for those later prop-driven comedies such as The Boat and The Love Nest.

It's not too much to suggest that Keaton looked at the various production difficulties of 1921, and decided to make a concerted attempt to place production on a secure footing.