The Blacksmith

Buster Keaton plays the long-suffering assistant to a monumental blacksmith (Joe Roberts) in this two-reel silent comedy co-directed with Malcolm St. Clair. In twenty minutes Keaton wrecks a Rolls-Royce, mis-shoes a horse, turns the shop's anvil into a weapon, and woos the local girl (Virginia Fox) through escalating disaster. The film is packed with signature Keaton engineering gags — the hinged car body, the horse that lifts a customer skyward — and a nude-statue routine that got the short censored in some territories. Made at the peak of Keaton's shorts period for producer Joseph M. Schenck, a year before he moved into features. Published in 1922, it is in the public domain in the United States.