The Keystone Cops are fictional, humorously incompetent policemen featured in silent film slapstick comedies produced by Mack Sennett for his Keystone Film Company between 1912 and 1917.
Mack Sennett was a Canadian-American film actor, director, and producer, and studio head, known as the 'King of Comedy'.
Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton was an American actor, comedian and filmmaker. He is best known for his silent film work, in which his trademark was physical comedy accompanied by a stoic, deadpan expression that earned him the nickname "The Great Stone Face". Critic Roger Ebert wrote of Keaton's "extraordinary period from 1920 to 1929" when he "worked without interruption" as having made him "the greatest actor-director in the history of the movies". In 1996, Entertainment Weekly recognized Keaton as the seventh-greatest film director, and in 1999 the American Film Institute ranked him as the 21st-greatest male star of classic Hollywood cinema.
Delmer "Del" Lord was a Canadian film director and actor best known as a director of Three Stooges films.
Edward Francis Cline was an American screenwriter, actor, writer and director best known for his work with comedians W. C. Fields and Buster Keaton. He was born in Kenosha, Wisconsin and died in Hollywood, California.
Tillie's Punctured Romance is a 1914 American silent comedy film directed by Mack Sennett and starring Marie Dressler, Mabel Normand, Charlie Chaplin, and the Keystone Kops. The picture was the only feature-length comedy made by the Keystone Film Company.
Keystone Studios was an early film studio founded in Edendale, California on July 4, 1912 as the Keystone Pictures Studio by Mack Sennett with backing from actor-writer Adam Kessel (1866–1946) and Charles O. Baumann (1874–1931), owners of the New York Motion Picture Company. The company, referred to at its office as The Keystone Film Company, filmed in and around Glendale and Silver Lake, Los Angeles for several years, and its films were distributed by the Mutual Film Corporation between 1912 and 1915. The Keystone film brand declined rapidly after Sennett went independent in 1917.
Silent comedy is a style of film, related to but distinct from mime, invented to bring comedy into the medium of film in the silent film era (1900s–1920s) before a synchronized soundtrack which could include talking was technologically available for the majority of films. Silent comedy is still practiced, albeit much less frequently, and it has influenced comedy in modern media as well.
Educational Pictures, also known as Educational Film Exchanges, Inc. or Educational Films Corporation of America, was an American film production and film distribution company founded in 1916 by Earle Hammons (1882–1962). Educational primarily distributed short subjects; it is best known for its series of comedies starring Buster Keaton (1934-37) and the earliest screen appearances of Shirley Temple (1932-34). The company ceased production in 1938, and finally closed in 1940 when its film library was sold at auction.
Chester Cooper Conklin was an early American film comedian who started at Keystone Studios as one of Mack Sennett’s Keystone Cops, often paired with Mack Swain. He appeared in a series of films with Mabel Normand and worked closely with Charlie Chaplin, both in silent and sound films.
Marceline Day was an American motion picture actress whose career began as a child in the 1910s and ended in the 1930s.
Malcolm St. Clair was a Hollywood film director, writer, producer and actor.
Abbott and Costello Meet the Keystone Kops is a 1955 comedy film directed by Charles Lamont and starring the comedy team of Abbott and Costello.
Coney Island is a 1917 American two-reel silent comedy film starring, written and directed by Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle and featuring Buster Keaton.
Sybil Seely was a silent film actress who worked with the well known silent film comedy actor Buster Keaton. She was credited in some of her films as Sibye Trevilla.
Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood is a 1976 American comedy film directed by Michael Winner and starring Bruce Dern, Madeline Kahn, Teri Garr and Art Carney. Spoofing the craze surrounding Rin Tin Tin, the film is notable for the large number of cameo appearances by actors and actresses from Hollywood's golden age many of whom had been employees of Paramount Pictures, the film's distributor.
Joey Marion McCreery Lewyn, known professionally as Marion Mack, was an American film actress and screenwriter. Mack is best known for co-starring with Buster Keaton in the 1926 silent comedy film, The General. After retiring from acting in 1928, she wrote several short screenplays and took up a career in real estate.
The Buster Keaton Story is a 1957 American biographical drama film directed by Sidney Sheldon and written by Sidney Sheldon and Robert Smith, following the life of Buster Keaton. The film stars Donald O'Connor, Ann Blyth, Rhonda Fleming, Peter Lorre, Larry Keating and Jackie Coogan. It was released on April 21, 1957, by Paramount Pictures. The film was described by AllMovie as "sublimely inaccurate" regarding details of Keaton's life. It was produced by Paramount Pictures, which paid Keaton $50,000 for the rights to his life story.
Al St. John (1893–1963) was an American comic actor who appeared in 394 films between 1913 and 1952. Starting at Mack Sennett's Keystone Film Company, St. John rose through the ranks to become one of the major comedy stars of the 1920s, though less than half of his starring roles still survive today. With the advent of sound drastically changing and curtailing the two-reel comedy format, St. John diversified, creating a second career for himself as a comic sidekick in Western films and ultimately developing the character of "Fuzzy Q. Jones", for which he is best known in posterity.
Find Your Man is a 1924 American silent action/drama film starring Rin Tin Tin and June Marlowe. It was directed by Mal St. Clair who persuaded Warner Bros. to hire his friend, Darryl F. Zanuck, to write the screenplay; this began a long association between Zanuck and Rin Tin Tin. Filming took place in Klamath Falls, Oregon. This film survives. It was transferred onto 16mm film by Associated Artists Productions in the 1950s and shown on television.
