One Week (1920) – Silent Comedy – Public Domain

## 🎬 One Week (1920) – Silent Comedy – Public Domain

**One Week** is a 1920 American **silent comedy short film** starring and co-directed by Buster Keaton alongside Edward F. Cline.

Produced and released through Metro Pictures, the film was one of Keaton’s earliest independent shorts and quickly established his reputation as one of the most inventive comedians of the silent era.

The movie is particularly famous for its imaginative visual gags involving a **do-it-yourself house kit**, which becomes the source of increasingly absurd construction problems.

Over time, *One Week* entered the **public domain**, allowing it to remain widely available and preserved as a classic of early cinema.

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## 📖 Plot Summary

A newly married couple receives a unique wedding gift: a **build-it-yourself house kit** that promises to create a complete home in just one week.

Excited to begin their new life together, they start assembling the house using numbered crates containing the building materials.

However, a jealous rival secretly rearranges the numbers on the crates, causing the house to be assembled incorrectly.

As construction progresses, the house becomes increasingly bizarre. Walls tilt at strange angles, doors open into empty space, and the structure twists into an unstable architectural nightmare.

Despite their best efforts to finish the house, the couple faces one chaotic disaster after another as the unusual building begins to collapse around them.

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## 🎥 Style & Legacy

* One of Buster Keaton’s earliest and most celebrated short films
* Famous for elaborate mechanical gags involving the rotating house
* Combines engineering creativity with precise physical comedy
* Helped establish Keaton as a master of visual storytelling

One of the film’s most famous scenes features the entire house **spinning during a violent storm**, demonstrating Keaton’s innovative use of practical effects and large-scale props.

Today, *One Week* is considered one of the greatest silent comedy shorts ever made and a perfect introduction to Buster Keaton’s groundbreaking style of filmmaking.

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