One Week (1920) || Classic Movie

One Week is a 1920 American two-reel silent comedy film starring Buster Keaton, the first independent film production he released on his own. The film was written and directed by Keaton and Edward F. Cline, and runs for 19 minutes. Sybil Seely co-stars. The film contains a large number of innovative visual gags largely pertaining to either the house or to ladders.

In 2008, One Week was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant"

The story involves a newlywed couple who receive a build-it-yourself house as a wedding gift. The house can be built, supposedly, in "one week". A rejected suitor secretly re-numbers packing crates. The groom struggles to assemble the house according to this new "arrangement". The result is a lopsided structure with revolving walls, kitchen fixtures on the exterior, and upper-floor doors that open onto thin air. During a housewarming party on Friday the 13th, a storm spins the house and its occupants around like a merry-go-round.

As if this were not enough, the couple find they have built the house on the wrong lot and must move it. They manage to move it on rollers but it stalls on railroad tracks. The couple try to move it out the way of an oncoming train, which eventually passes on the neighboring track. As the couple look relieved, the house is immediately struck and demolished by another train coming the other way. The groom stares at the scene, places a 'For Sale' sign with the heap (attaching the building instructions) and walks off with his bride.

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