A Supercut of Buster Keaton’s Daring DIY Stunts–and Keaton’s 5 Rules of Comic Storytelling
- dthholland
- 4 hours ago
- 6 min read
Long before CGI explosions and green screens, Buster Keaton was flinging himself off buildings, leaping onto moving trains, and surviving collapsing houses – all in the name of silent comedy. Known as “The Great Stone Face” for his deadpan expression, Keaton wasn’t just a brilliant filmmaker and comedian – he was also one of the most fearless stunt performers in cinema history. And the wildest part? He did all his stunts himself.
Why Did Buster Keaton Do His Own Stunts?
Keaton came from a vaudeville background where physical comedy and danger were part of the job (His father was a comedian. His mother, a soubrette,) and he started performing on stage with his parents when he was just a toddler. Being thrown around the stage (literally – his father would toss him into scenery as part of the act) meant that by the time he moved into film in the 1910s, Keaton was already an expert in pratfalls, acrobatics, and timing. His father’s business partner, escape artist Harry Houdini, renamed him Buster, approving of the way the rubbery little Keaton weathered an accidental tumble down a flight of stairs.
He believed that performing his own stunts gave his films an authenticity you couldn’t fake – and he was right. The camera didn’t lie, and audiences were captivated by the sheer audacity of what they were watching.
As Keaton recalls in the interview accompanying silent movie fan Don McHoull’s edit of some of his most amazing stunts, above:
My old man was an eccentric comic and as soon as I could take care of myself at all on my feet, he had slapped shoes on me and big baggy pants. And he'd just start doing gags with me and especially kickin' me clean across the stage or taking me by the back of the neck and throwing me. By the time I got up to around seven or eight years old, we were called The Roughest Act That Was Ever in the History of the Stage.
By the time of his first film role in the 1917 Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle vehicle, The Butcher Boy, Keaton was a seasoned clown, with plenty of experience stringing physical gags into an entertaining narrative whole.
Like his silent peers, Harold Lloyd and Charlie Chaplin, Keaton was an idea man, who saw no need for a script. Armed with a firm concept of how the film should begin and end, he rolled cameras without much idea of how the middle would turn out, fine tuning his physical set pieces on the fly, scrapping the ones that didn’t work and embracing the happy accidents.
Could such an approach work for today’s comedians? In later interviews, Keaton was generous toward other comedy professionals who got their laughs via methods he steered clear of, from Bob Hope’s wordiness to director Billy Wilder’s deft handling of Some Like It Hot’s farcical cross-dressing. His was never a one-size-fits-all philosophy.
Buster Keaton’s 5 Rules of Comic Storytelling;
Make a strong start - grab the audience with a dynamic, easy to grasp premise, like the one in 1920’s One Week, which finds a newlywed Buster struggling to assemble a house from a do-it-yourself kit.
Decide how you want things to finish up - for Keaton, this usually involved getting the girl, though he learned to keep a poker face after a preview audience booed the broad grin he tried out in one of Arbuckle’s shorts. Once you know where your story’s going, trust that the middle will take care of itself.
If it’s not working, cut it - Keaton may not have had a script, but he invested a lot of thought into the physical set pieces of his films. If it didn’t work as well as he hoped in execution, he cut it loose. If some serendipitous snafu turned out to be funnier than the intended gag, he put that in instead.
Play it like it matters to you. - As many a beginning improv student finds out, if you let your own material crack you up, the audience is rarely inclined to laugh along. Why settle for low stakes and diffidence, when high stakes and commitment are so much funnier?
Action over words - Whether dealing with dialogue or exposition, Keaton strove to minimise the intertitles in his silent work. Show, don’t tell.
Films excerpted at top:
Three Ages - Keaton swings from a rope between buildings in one of his earliest solo films. During a fall, he lands on a fire escape which collapses – it was a stunt that had to go exactly right to avoid serious injury. Cops - In Cops, Keaton ends up being chased by an entire police force in one of silent cinema’s most frantic finales. One of the most dangerous gags sees him dodging dozens of officers while navigating through moving vehicles, horses, and collapsing furniture. He climbs walls, leaps from wagons, and swings from lampposts – all real, all timed to the second. There’s also a moment where a huge pile of furniture crashes down around him, narrowly missing his head Day Dreams - This short is loaded with physical gags, but one standout moment is when Keaton gets stuck in a rotating log on a river, leading to an intense and uncut sequence of him being tossed by the current. It’s a legitimate water hazard, and Keaton performs it without a double. The film also includes a moment where he jumps from a ferry into the sea, struggling against the tide, and another scene where he narrowly avoids being struck by a moving trolley. Sherlock Jr. - In one scene, Keaton grabs a water spout on a moving train and is pulled onto the top. What he didn’t realise at the time was the force of the water would smash him to the ground. He completed the scene – but later discovered he had fractured his neck. One Week - One Week is all about a couple trying to assemble a DIY house – which, naturally, goes catastrophically wrong. Keaton climbs all over the house as it spins in the wind, collapses, and rotates on its foundation. One of the most infamous gags features a wall falling on him while he’s obliviously sweeping – a forerunner to the more famous Steamboat Bill, Jr. stunt. The final scene involves the entire house being hit by a moving train – all done in-camera, with Keaton just metres away. Hard Luck - Although once thought lost, this film has since been rediscovered – and it includes one of Keaton’s most infamous gags. After a series of misadventures, his character dives headfirst into a small swimming hole and disappears – completely. It wasn’t until the film’s rediscovery that viewers could finally see the punchline: he emerges years later with a Chinese wife and several children. The dive itself was real and dangerous – a miscalculation in depth or trajectory could have been fatal. Neighbors - Set in an urban tenement, Neighbors has Keaton flying on clotheslines, swinging between balconies, and being launched over fences. One key stunt shows him being carried across the backyard while standing on a door held between two burly men – a wobbly balancing act that required perfect timing. There’s also a human ladder sequence where Keaton climbs on people to reach an upper floor, followed by a risky leap from one building to another. The General - Set during the American Civil War, this film features Keaton riding a moving train, running along the top of it, leaping between cars, and even sitting on the connecting rods of the wheels while the train was in motion. One wrong move and he would’ve been crushed. He even caused a real train to plunge into a river for a single shot – it was the most expensive scene in silent film at the time. Steamboat Bill, Jr. - This is the most famous Buster Keaton stunt – and one of the most iconic in cinema history. A house front collapses around him, and he survives by standing perfectly in line with an open upper-storey window. No camera tricks, no safety wires – just precision and nerve. The window was only inches wider than his shoulders. Had he stood even slightly off mark, it would’ve killed him. Seven Chances - This film is famous for its slapstick wedding sequence, but its most dangerous moment comes during the avalanche scene – not of snow, but of boulders. Keaton is seen being chased downhill by dozens of real, heavy, rolling rocks. They were carefully released, but there was still genuine risk. One wrong step and he would’ve been flattened. The scene builds until Keaton is literally sprinting for his life as rocks thunder down behind him. Our Hospitality - A parody of old Southern family feuds, this film contains some of Keaton’s most stunning location stunts. In one remarkable sequence, he rides on the front of a makeshift railway track bicycle over a rickety bridge. Even more famously, he rescues a woman from a waterfall by swinging from a rope, dangling over real rapids. The scene was shot on location with no doubles, and Keaton actually broke his foot during filming – though he carried on regardless. The Bell Boy- One of Keaton’s earliest collaborations with Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, this film includes a memorable moment where Keaton rides a chandelier while playing a bellboy wreaking havoc in a hotel. He also slides down a fire pole, crashes through walls, and is involved in chaotic slapstick involving collapsing props and flying furniture. Though less elaborate than his later work, Keaton’s early stunt work still shows his willingness to risk physical injury for a laugh.
