One Week

Buster Keaton's first independent two-reeler — and a perfect introduction to his genius. A pair of newlyweds receive a build-it-yourself house as a wedding gift, but a jealous rival has scrambled the numbered crates, and the results are spectacularly, hilariously wrong: doors open onto walls, the second floor protrudes at impossible angles, and the whole structure spins on its foundation. Keaton plays the escalating architectural catastrophe with his trademark stoic determination, and the film builds to one of his greatest sight gags — a falling house front that misses him by inches through an open window. Shot in just a few days for almost nothing, it's a masterclass in how to generate enormous laughs from simple premises, perfect timing, and a willingness to risk life and limb for a joke.