Hard Luck
- 1921
- 22m
IMDb RATING
6.9/10
2.6K
YOUR RATING
Strange things ensue after a young man attempts to take his own life.Strange things ensue after a young man attempts to take his own life.Strange things ensue after a young man attempts to take his own life.
- Awards
- 1 nomination
- Directors
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThis film was considered to be Buster Keaton's major lost film for over 60 years until it was discovered in 1987. The recovered print had dozens of shots and scenes and gags missing throughout the film, making many of the extant gags non-understandable, including the final two gags missing entirely: the pool dive, which Keaton said got his biggest laugh at the time it was originally released, and the Chinese family. The print was preserved in the Raymond Rohauer Collection and later released on home video.
Over a decade later a tinted print was discovered complete except for the final Chinese family scene. That final scene was discovered in a badly degraded Russian copy. The now complete film, with tinting, was restored by Lobster Films in 2001 and released on DVD.
In 2015 the tinting was restored to the original B&W, and new completely rewritten intertitles were substituted throughout with many new ones added, and this version was re-released on Blu-Ray.
- GoofsBuster steps off a curb by a narrow street with no streetcar tracks, into a wide street with an approaching streetcar.
- Quotes
Zoo committee member: Have you ever been connected to any branch of science?
Suicidal Boy: I was once attached to a branch of the zoo...
- ConnectionsFeatured in Buster Keaton: A Hard Act to Follow (1987)
Featured review
"I was on a branch of the zoo"
'Hard Luck (1921)' is a very unusual Buster Keaton short, and I'll demonstrate this with a very brief synopsis. Down-on-his-luck Buster, having just lost his love and livelihood, resolves to end his life. This proves more difficult than anticipated. After several incredibly droll failed suicide attempts, Buster escapes the need to kill himself by accidentally getting drunk. He staggers into a meeting of zoo staff, and promptly accepts their challenge to capture the ultra-rare armadillo for the zoo's animal collection ("I was on a branch of the zoo!"). Buster then goes fishing, presumably to catch an armadillo, though that subplot is never mentioned again. Buster then wanders into a country club, where he spots a pretty girl (Virginia Fox) embarking on a fox-hunt, and decides to do the same. Later, an evil fugitive named Lizard Lip Luke (Joe Roberts) takes the girl hostage, and Buster saves the day.
Our hero quickly proposes to the rescued damsel-in-distress, but, on hearing of her current marriage, he decides to do some high-diving into a swimming pool (that, without exaggeration, is all the transition we are afforded between these two plot-points). The film's final gag, believed lost for years, has recently been restored, and allegedly brought Buster Keaton his most rapturous audience response: certainly, it comes completely out of left-field! In fact, so bizarre was this conclusion that it made me rethink my original stance on the film as a whole. Beforehand, I was inclined to view 'Hard Luck' as a collection of random gags clumsily cobbled together into a two-reeler. However, something tells me now that the anarchy of Keaton's storyline was very much intended. This is cinematic insanity in the same vein as 'Hellzapoppin' (1941)' or the Marx Brothers.
Our hero quickly proposes to the rescued damsel-in-distress, but, on hearing of her current marriage, he decides to do some high-diving into a swimming pool (that, without exaggeration, is all the transition we are afforded between these two plot-points). The film's final gag, believed lost for years, has recently been restored, and allegedly brought Buster Keaton his most rapturous audience response: certainly, it comes completely out of left-field! In fact, so bizarre was this conclusion that it made me rethink my original stance on the film as a whole. Beforehand, I was inclined to view 'Hard Luck' as a collection of random gags clumsily cobbled together into a two-reeler. However, something tells me now that the anarchy of Keaton's storyline was very much intended. This is cinematic insanity in the same vein as 'Hellzapoppin' (1941)' or the Marx Brothers.
helpful•80
- ackstasis
- May 12, 2010
Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Languages
- Also known as
- Nonsens
- Filming locations
- MacArthur Park, Los Angeles, California, USA(scenes with Gen. Harrison Gray Otis)
- Production company
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
- Runtime22 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.33 : 1
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