Released in 1920, “One Week” was famous comedian Buster Keaton’s first independent film which he wrote, directed, and starred in. This short film tells the story of a newlywed couple who receive a “build-it-yourself” house as a wedding present. The house should supposedly be assembled in one week’s time, and the film depicts Keaton’s unsuccessful attempts to assemble it. To add an extra layer of difficulty and comedy, the parts of the house have been secretly renumbered by a spurned lover of Keaton’s wife. Keaton not only makes a “Frankenstein” of a house, assembling it by the wrong numbers, but he also foolishly builds it on the wrong side of the street. After he realizes his mistake, he has to move the house all the way to the other side, which leads us to a suspenseful climax of the film where the house is sitting in the middle of the train tracks, right in the path of an oncoming train. After the crisis is seemingly averted, with the train passing on the neighboring tracks, the house is crushed by another train coming from a different direction. It is then that Keaton finally admits defeat and puts up a “for sale” sign, taking his wife by the hand and leaving the messy remains of their would-be habitat behind them. The film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as a work of cultural significance.
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