Borrowing the Keaton Studio
Posted: Tue Jul 03, 2018 8:33 pm
This is likely old news for some of you, but it wasn't for me, so here goes. Apparently the Keaton Studio was available to outside producers when Buster was between films.
The 7/8/27 issue of Motion Picture News notes that Herbert Brenon and company had been filming Sorrell and Son at the United Artists Studio (otherwise known as the Pickford-Fairbanks Studio). But with My Best Girl and The Gaucho both going into production there that month, accommodations must have gotten a bit cramped. So on June 13, the Sorrell and Son company left and set up shop nearby at the Keaton Studio, where sets had already been constructed and were ready for use. An item in another article notes that the Sorrell and Son team would be leaving for England on July 16 to film authentic exteriors, so it stands to reason that quite a lot of that film was shot amidst Buster Keaton's footprints.
Elsewhere in the issue, it's reported that production on the upcoming Keaton release College had recently been completed.
All of these were United Artists films. One wonders if Joseph Schenck volunteered the use of the Keaton Studio, and how much rent might have been paid--- which must have trimmed the overhead expenses that would otherwise have been applied to the budget of College.
The 7/8/27 issue of Motion Picture News notes that Herbert Brenon and company had been filming Sorrell and Son at the United Artists Studio (otherwise known as the Pickford-Fairbanks Studio). But with My Best Girl and The Gaucho both going into production there that month, accommodations must have gotten a bit cramped. So on June 13, the Sorrell and Son company left and set up shop nearby at the Keaton Studio, where sets had already been constructed and were ready for use. An item in another article notes that the Sorrell and Son team would be leaving for England on July 16 to film authentic exteriors, so it stands to reason that quite a lot of that film was shot amidst Buster Keaton's footprints.
Elsewhere in the issue, it's reported that production on the upcoming Keaton release College had recently been completed.
All of these were United Artists films. One wonders if Joseph Schenck volunteered the use of the Keaton Studio, and how much rent might have been paid--- which must have trimmed the overhead expenses that would otherwise have been applied to the budget of College.