June 25 Charlotte Greenwood

Happy Birthday June Lockhart and Charlotte Greenwood

To celebrate Charlotte Greenwood’s birthday I watched Parlor, Bedroom and Bath. This is my favorite Buster Keaton sound film. The house used is Keaton’s actual house which was called the Italian Villa.

Dorothy Christy plays a rich young woman who will only marry a playboy, a man well versed in women, a cad. Keaton sees her at the pool and instantly falls in love with her. He is hit by a car driven by Reginald Denny. Denny takes him to the house. Dorothy is interested in him. Keaton is not a playboy and Denny tries several things to get Dorothy to see that he is one. He finally asks a social reporter, played by Charlotte Greenwood, to give him love lessons. It will be an extravagant dinner in a hotel room. Keaton gets the wrong girl to the hotel: a married woman with a jealous husband. He has a list that he has to follow of instructions.

Charlotte comes in the room in her evening cloths and chases him around the room. In her shoes and Keaton slightly hunched over she is 6” taller. Her waist is level with his chest. In coaching him how to make love to a woman she basically throws him around the room. When she has him do it back, he hardly moves. When she gets him to kiss her, she goes mad. It is a very brotherly type of kiss. She climbs over the couch and he runs to the closet. She chases him around again. She catches him, kisses him and throws him on the ground. He then comes after her, kisses her and throws her on the couch. When he comes back after her, she holds him off by her leg. She then runs out of the room to change cloths. Friends of the woman he ran off with come to get her, the husband is on the way. Dorothy shows up. Then Charlotte comes in the rooming wearing lounging pajamas and goes to her knees and pulls on Keaton’s pajama pants, which pulls them down. The husband comes in the room. He finds his wife in a negligee. He pulls a gun. There is a shot, Charlotte screams and states I’ve been shot and falls to the ground. Everyone runs out of the room. The man pushes Keaton into a chair, throws the gun on the floor and locks him in the room. Charlotte then opens her eyes and gets up. She goes into another room to get refreshed. When she comes back out Keaton tips over a lamp which falls on Charlotte’s head knocking her unconscious.

Keaton tries to move her body. He puts her upright in an inverted V. He then crawls under her so that she will be on his back and crawls to the closet. He can’t get her into the closet. He takes the door off the hinges and rolls her onto the door and puts the door upright and he holds up the door as the police come in the room. Once it is determined that she is not dead, everyone leaves except Keaton and Dorothy. He applies his lessons.