ChicDragon It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

Matylda Swan It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Bob This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Raj Doctor Amsterdam has this tradition of theatres that invite prominent musicians of the city to play orchestra during an old classic silent movie. I got an invitation from my office friend – Lucy Wilson to watch one of such shows. As never in my life I have seen such a thing, I immediately accepted the invitation. It was a show of three short silent movies (20-25 minutes) of the great Buster Keaton – The Electric House, The Frozen North and One Week.Buster Keaton started his career as playing Laurel's part in "Laurel and Hardy" series, but soon captured the silent era imagination with great classic silent movies - obviously with reminiscence of Charlie Chaplin style.The first movie The Electric House – was about a person who by mistake is given a job of an electrician in a house. Buster Keaton innovates and imagines all possible electrical appliances possible in 1920s – more or less we see a lot of them today. Hats off to this genius for his visionary power! The second movie The Frozen North – is about a person who dreams himself as a bad guy of Wild West with a gun on a frozen snow clad landscape. It is a wonderful comic take on what a man can think of doing if given some heroic movie image.The third movie One Week – is about a newly married couple who get a portable house as a gift and their attempt to assemble it together. The laugh starts when they mix the number of boxes and end up in creating a house that has everything fitted in the most inappropriate way. It was amusing.I loved all the three movies. This was also my first viewing of Buster Keaton movies and I enjoyed it a lot. Added experience was this live orchestra on organ / piano being played that was in synch with the movie scenes.Highly recommended movies! (Stars 7.5 out of 10)

rbverhoef The Buster Keaton short 'The Electric House' is fun to watch, does not bore, but misses the most important element to make a Buster Keaton short brilliant. The thing I mean is his physical magic, displayed in almost all of his short film, almost completely missing here.As a fake electric engineer Keaton installs electricity in the house of rich man while he is on vacation. Once the man is back Keaton shows him a lot of electrical surprises. There is an electric snooker table, a train that delivers food, a pool able the empty itself and a lot of other stuff. Of course things do not go as they should, especially when the real electrical engineer arrives.The problem here is the electricity, almost making a statement: electricity makes men useless. The fun in 'The Electric House' comes from the machines, how they work and at times how they fail to work. This leaves little room for Keaton to show what he does best. It is fun alright, but not much more.

MartinHafer This silent comedy short reminds me a lot of the Daffy Duck and Porky Pig cartoon where Daffy installs 101 buttons to make Porky's life easier--but they don't. The big difference is that Buster's bizarre push button contraptions generally work, though there are some notable exceptions.The film begins with Buster at a college graduation ceremony. He's receiving a doctorate in science, so he's obviously a bright guy. However, his diploma gets switched with a guy getting an Electrical Engineering degree and the Dean asks Buster to wire his home due to his engineering background. Instead of telling him he had no idea how to do this, he gets a book and makes some incredible changes. The family returns from vacation to find an escalator (one of the few additions that DOESN'T work too well), an electrically controlled billiard table, a self-filling and draining pool that can do either in only seconds, a train layout that brings food from the kitchen and several other cool but strange contraptions. The family is pleased and invite guests over the next day to show off their home.Unfortunately, the guy with the real Electrical Engineering degree is ticked because he wasn't asked to wire the home, so he sneaks in and makes the contraptions go haywire. It's a lot of fun seeing all the gadgets go mad, and in the end, he gets his,...but unfortunately, so does Buster. Fade out.This is a pretty "inventive" piece, though there did seem to be a few other silent comedies about inventors and contraptions (such as those done by Snub Pollard and Billy Bevan). While far from Buster's funniest film, it's very good and deserves a look.

Polaris_DiB A wonderfully inventive companion piece to The Scarecrow, this mechanical comedy by Keaton often makes me wonder if it isn't possible to go back in time and hire Keaton to design a house for me.Due to a mix-up of diplomas, the young hair-stylist character of Keaton is asked to wire a mansion with electricity. Spending a moment with a book on "Wiring Made Easy" and the mansion owner's vacation time, Keaton devises escalators, train-propelled dishwashers, and all the neat little gadgets and tricks that "surprise" them (whether or not any of these flourishes are needed, of course, adds its own amount of humor to the equation).Of course it's not like we can have everything just go well like that, so the rejected and jealous actual electrical engineer decides one fateful day to wreak vengeance upon the circuitry. It's then a trip of mayhap and mayhem as the hosting family tries to entertain guests, Keaton tries to figure out what's wrong, and bodies, dishes, and pool balls go flying amiss.The appealing result is a good chuckle. It's definitely not as amazingly inventive as The Scarecrow (which is absolutely mind-boggling in its mechanical genius), but it does the job and does it well. It also doesn't really end the way you come to expect of Keaton. All in all, however, it's a pretty good time.--PolarisDiB