6. The Electric House
Buster Keaton brings his trademark gift for physical comedy to this 1922 short, released in a time when just around half of American homes were wired for electricity, and therefore the idea of a house filled with “high-tech” gewgaws was incredibly novel. After a diploma mix-up, Keaton’s character—a botanist—is mistakenly hired to electrify an entire mansion, and sets about the task armed only with determination and a copy of Electricity Made Easy. Naturally, he doesn’t stop at just setting up overhead lights; he gives the client and his family all kinds of luxurious enhancements, like an electric pool table and an electric train that brings food from the kitchen to the dining room. Alas, his inventions have already started to malfunction even before the real electrical engineer, who’s furious about losing the mansion gig, launches a campaign of sabotage. Though The Electric House doesn’t quite achieve the high-energy hilarity of 1920’s One Week (in which Keaton’s hapless character must construct an entire home in a single week), there’s still plenty of mayhem between the flying dishes, rapidly draining (and refilling) swimming pool, and the comically speedy staircase-turned-escalator.
