Keaton's Silent Shorts: Beyond the Laughter

Chapter 5: Neighbors

OIapfus Neighbors (january 1921) Courtesy orlhe Aodemy or Motion Picture "TU )ud Scknccs Neighbors set s Buster's poetry of romance within an optimistic Romeo and Juliet tale. The original name of this Sllort was Mailbox , which also evokes a twentieth -century Pyramis and Thisbe wearing porkpie and gingham, passing notes thrpugh a barrier t o love.I This love story, however, 'leads to marriage, w hidl creates antagonismsofthc most acrobatic sort. Keaton'8 barbs at mar- Neighbors riage, women, and, this time, blacks probe the theme of duality that will pervade subsequent films with growing subtlety. The opening title sighs: THE FLOWER OF LOVE COULD FIND NO MORE ROMANTIC SPOT IN WHICH TO BLOSSOM THAN IN THIS POET'S DREAM GARDEN. The opening iris reveals the Dream Garden: a tenement yard divided by a tall plank fence. Buster and The Girl (Virginia Fox, later married to Darryl Zanuck, head ofTwentieth Century-Fox) appear small in this establishing shot as they lean wistfully on each side of the large fence-even though the door stands wide open, an ironic barrier. As we cut to a medium shot ofBuster, a note suddenly pokes through a shoulder-high knothole. I LOVE YOU, the message reads in close-up. After mutual shy peeking, Buster appends his passion to the note: I LOVE YOU 2. As the romance plays out, the parents are introduced: Ma and Pa K (Joe Keaton) and Mr. and Mrs. Joe (Joe Roberts). Each couple interferes with the suspicious correspondence and drives their respective offspring home. This and the following sequence are fraught with the image of the barrier, which creates comedy from the clashes between humans and objects . The sequences also imply the powerful emotional barriers that can exist in families. While this is the stuff of tragedy, passing through. this fence approaches comedy, since the family rivalry is humorously exaggerated . The fence tangibly represents the obstruction created by the feuding parents, although for the lovers, the barrier is symbolically invisible. Its physicality gradually disappears with each of their efforts to surmount the fence. Through persistence (certainly not through the door), Buster and The Girl bound over physical and mental fences. While this bodes well for "true love," reality is a merciless test. Buster as Keeper of the Dream Garden revives long-lost chivalry; however, Keaton as Keeper of the Film pokes fun at Buster's pursuits. The barrier is as real as the dreams that counter it. Unfortunately, the battle of reality versus dream is often weighted toward the more concrete opponent, simply because it is easier to see and feel. Under such battery, dreams can collapse and disappear. Buster's dreams of love and marriage will be continually assaulted by the weapons of argument, distrust, and confusion-all of which the parental role models epitomize with grand agility. Once Ma K and Joe stand on opposite sides of the fence, Pa K and Mrs. Joe enter in respective synunetrical balance. Pa K is aghast at his wife scrutinizing the knothole; Joe passes the note back. Thinking his wife is the recipient, he hotly returns the note just as Mrs. Joe swipes it and staggers at its import. The love note wrings the worst from each 51 Neighbors party through suspicion ofinfidelity and lifelong lack of affection. Buster and The Girl rise above these hostilities-literally, for she calls to Buster from a third-floor window. He passes unnoticed through the fence door to her building, where he jacknifes himself smoothly up to and into her window. We cut to the darkened hallway as Buster croons to The Girl beforeJoe suddenly lungcs at him. The family feud has not been restricted to the yards; when true love threatens, the parcnts obviously keep a strict lookout even if they are in the midst of argument. In three shots, we follow Buster's daring escape: (1) as he travels across the laundry line into the third-floor window of his building; (2) interior shot, as he careens down the banister out the second-floor window; (3) exterior shot again, as he travels the laundry line into the opposite window and Joe. Buster is like a Knight in Shining Armor who has traveled far through treacherous lands to save the Damsel in the Tower; he also knows the Four-Headed Dragon (parents) lurks not far from him. Perhaps for Buster, part of what makes his Quest of Woman so...