| The Blacksmith | |
| Producer: | Joseph M. Schenck |
| Starring: | Buster Keaton |
| Cinematography: | Elgin Lessley |
| Distributor: | First National Pictures |
| Runtime: | 25 minutes |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | Silent English intertitles |
The Blacksmith is a 1922 American short comedy film co-written, co-directed by Malcolm St. Clair and Buster Keaton and starring Keaton.[1] [2]
The central conflict in The Blacksmith emerges when Keaton, a young blacksmith, struggles to master the shop’s machinery and implements which seem to defy his efforts to control them. Virginia Fox, a pretty elite equestrian, is an unwitting victim of his ineptitude.[3]
Buster (Buster Keaton) is an assistant blacksmith who makes horseshoes and repairs automobiles. He finds himself at odds with virtually every inanimate object in the shop: the forge, the blowtorch, the winch, and sledgehammers resist his control. Even a single red-hot horseshoe proves unmanageable. He is dismayed when he inadvertently destroys an Rolls-Royce automobile.
An equestrian gentlewoman (Virginia Fox) arrives to have her snow-white mare re-shod. By the time she departs, Buster has dirtied the equine with black axle grease. When a giant horseshoe suspended from the ceiling of the shop becomes magnetized, iron objects begin disappearing from the shop floor. Suspecting his assistant of tomfoolery, the enormous senior blacksmith (Joe Roberts}, becomes enraged and a fight ensues. A sheriff arrives and his badge disappears, then his pistol. He summons the posse. Buster discovers the secret of the giant horseshoe and disables it: dozens of tools plunge to the floor. The senior blacksmith is escorted to the jail to explain.[4]
In June 2013, Argentine film collector, curator and historian Fernando Martín Peña (who had previously unearthed the complete version of Metropolis) discovered an alternate version of this film, a sort of remake whose last reel differs completely from the previously known version.[5] Film historians have since found evidence that the version of The Blacksmith Peña uncovered was a substantial reshoot undertaken months after completion of principal photography and a preview screening in New York. They now believe the rediscovered version was Keaton's final cut intended for wide distribution.
Following Peña's discovery, a third version of the film, featuring at least one scene which doesn't occur in either of the other two, was found in the collection of former film distributor Blackhawk Films.[6]