Buster Keaton Brochure

FABER SILENTS

Buster Keaton

Carl Davis

Faber Silents presents ‘The Great Stone Face’ in a series of classic shorts and features with original Carl Davis scores.

FABER SILENTS

Features The General - 76 mins Buster Keaton is at his very best in the film that Orson Welles described as “the greatest comedy ever made, the greatest Civil War film ever made, and perhaps the greatest film ever made.”

Buster’s Johnnie Gray, disappointed at being unable to enlist in the Confederate army, proves himself to his fiancée when Union soldiers steal his locomotive, The General.

ORCHESTRATION 32 Players: 1(=picc).1(=ca).2(II=Ebcl+bcl).1 - 2.2.btrbn.0 - timp - perc(2) banjo - harmonica - pno - synth - strings (6.4.2.2.1)

Our Hospitality - 74 mins Returning to his home town to claim an inheritance, Buster’s Willie McKay stumbles into a generations old feud between his family and the Canfields with hilarious and astonishing results.

ORCHESTRATION 18 Players: 1(=picc).1(=ca).2(I=bcl.II=fl).1 – 1.1.1.0 pno(=harmonium) - strings (2.2.2.2.1)

Steamboat Bill, Jr. - 71 mins Buster plays the foppish son of paddle steamer owner, William ‘Steamboat Bill’ Canfield, who has just returned from college. When his father ends up in jail for attacking his rival, Steamboat Bill, Jr. must rescue both the man and his business.

This film features an incarnation of Keaton’s most famous gag in which the front of a building falls on him during a storm.

ORCHESTRATION 16 Players: 1(=picc).0.1.0 - 0.1.1.1 - perc(3) - pno - synth - ukulele(=gtr and electric gtr) strings (1.1.1.1.1)

FABER SILENTS

Shorts

The High Sign - 21 mins Fooling everyone into thinking he’s a crack shot, Buster is hired as an assassin by the murderous ‘Blinking Buzzards’. But in the meantime their target has also hired him as his bodyguard.

ORCHESTRATION T.B.C.

One Week - 25 mins After the instructional numbers have been switched on the parts of their build-it-yourself house, newlyweds Keaton and Sybil Seely spend a week trying to make sense of their architectural disaster.

ORCHESTRATION 32 Players: 1(=picc).1.2.1 - 2.2.btrbn.0 - timp(=perc) perc(3) - pno - synth - strings (6.4.2.2.2)

The Playhouse - 22 mins This theatrical 1921 story of stagecraft features extraordinary camera trickery enabling Buster to play every character in the opening 6-minute vaudeville show. This includes a rather inept orchestra, a 9-member minstrel act and different audience members, from children to aristocratic ladies.

ORCHESTRATION 12/13 Players: 1(=picc).0.1.1 - 0.1.btrbn.0 - perc(2/3) gtr(=tenor banjo) - strings (1.1.0.1.1)

The Scarecrow - 19 mins Buster is a farmhand in competition with a colleague for the love of the farmer’s daughter. However, while running from a dog, Buster falls into a hay thresher, ruining his clothes, and has to borrow some from a nearby scarecrow.

ORCHESTRATION T.B.C.

FABER SILENTS

ANNIVERSARY

In 2016 it will be 50 years since the death of Buster Keaton.

The composition of 3 new scores by award-winning composer Carl Davis for Steamboat Bill, Jr., The High Sign and The Scarecrow coincides with this anniversary and provides numerous premiere opportunities.

HIRE / RENTAL

Contact Helen McLean at Faber Music for score hire and film print information 020 7908 5332 silentfilms@fabermusic.com SPRING 2015