The Flower of Love could find no more romantic spot in which to blossom than in this poet's Dream Garden.
— Opening Title
Neighbors is a 1920 short film directed by Buster Keaton and Eddie Cline.
In this 1920 two-reeler, Buster Keaton and Virginia Fox are a lower-class Romeo and Juliet who live in neighboring tenements. All they want is to get married, but their parents, and especially the girl's hulking, intimidating father, get in the way.
Not to be confused with the 1981 Black Comedy feature of the same name, which starred Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi. Also not to be confused with any other film or television series of a similar title.
"Neighbors" provides examples of:
- Acme Products: The girl's wedding ring comes from the Acme Five-and-Dime store. Her father squishes it in his hand, and is so offended that he calls the wedding off and drags his daughter out.
- Amusing Injuries: Throughout, like when Buster gets slammed into a telephone pole while he's being dragged by a cop, or said cop gets knocked out when, while standing outside a baseball stadium, he's conked on the head by a home run ball.
- Banana Peel: Used by Buster to effect an escape by tripping his prospective father-in-law.
- Bedsheet Ghost: An extremely racist gag. A black woman is carrying home laundry in a cart, not knowing that Buster is hiding inside. She gets home, only for the black woman and her entire family to flee in terror when Buster rises up from the sheets and becomes a bedsheet ghost.
- Blackface: Invoked by mud in the face, with some social satire involved, as the local cop is quick to arrest Buster when Buster looks like a black man due to being covered in mud, but lets Buster go when Buster washes his face off.
- Cute Kitten: A cop thinks he's found Buster hiding under a bedsheet. He whips off the sheet, only to find a mama cat and her kittens.
- Dragged by the Collar: See the page illustration. The girl's giant of a father yanks Buster around.
- Dysfunctional Family: "Her father's abused her long enough; Now I want to marry her and take her home to my father."
- Feuding Families: Why the families are feuding is not explained.
- Girl Next Door: Or at least in the building across the alley.
- Human Ladder: Buster and two of his buddies do this so Buster can get access to the girl on the third floor of the opposite tenement. Specifically, there's a sight gag in which one guy comes out of the first floor, another comes out of the second floor, Buster comes out of the third floor, and they stride across the courtyard together.
- Improvised Weapon: Specifically, a broomstick quarterstaff.
- Improvised Zipline: The wash line that stretches between the two buildings.
- Iris Out: The movie ends with one.
- Leet Lingo: An Older Than Television example — Buster replies to a note that says "I love you" by scrawling "2" at the end and returning it.
- Literal Ass-Kicking: It's a silent slapstick film. How could there not be?
- Mistaken Message: The fathers intercept messages passed through the wall between Buster and the girl—causing their wives to think that the fathers have girlfriends.
- Parental Marriage Veto: Their parents certainly believe they have the right to exercise it.
- Sarcasm Mode: The opening intertitle (see above) is followed by an iris open to a bare dirt lot bisected by a wooden fence.
- Separated by the Wall: There's a wall dividing the courtyard between the tenements, through which Buster and his girl pass notes. Subverted when Buster reveals there's a door in the wall.
- Unwilling Suspension: Buster is briefly pinned to a clothesline by his shoes.
- Wall Crawl: Buster makes it up to the third floor of his girl's building by hoisting himself up from one window to the next.
- Watch Out for That Tree!: The Human Ladder is eventually caught by the girl's father. As Buster, his buddies, and the girl flee with the father in pursuit, the Human Ladder keeps careening into things, knocking out a rung at a time.
