Rumor has it that as a very young child, Joseph Francis Keaton Jr. tumbled down a flight of stairs, ending up unharmed and unfazed at the bottom. Harry Houdini (a fellow Vaudeville performer with Keaton's parents) remarked, "What a buster your baby took!" and the name stuck.
A vaudevillian from the age of five, Keaton began his film career with Fatty Arbuckle at the age of 21, and began directing and starring in his own films a couple of years later. The films from this silent era are his most enduring--and are inventive, visionary, and as funny as anything that has followed. Unlike his contemporaries Chaplin or Harold Lloyd, Keaton does not mug; he does not implore his audience; he watches calmly along with the audience as chaos unfolds and reacts with his trademark smarts, physical skill and elegance.

Musical accompaniment for every screening in the Buster Keaton series will be provided by longtime AFI Silver friend and organist Ray Brubacher, Professor Andrew Simpson from The Catholic University School of Music and Baltimore based sensation Boister.

LISTEN TO 94.7 THE GLOBE TO WIN TICKETS TO THE BEST OF BUSTER KEATON SCREENINGS!

MAY 6: OUR HOSPITALITY (BOISTER performing, see special pricing)
MAY 13: SHERLOCK JR. with THE BLACKSMITH (Ray Brubacher performing)
MAY 20: THE NAVIGATOR (Andrew Simpson performing)
MAY 27: THE GENERAL (Ray Brubacher performing)
JUNE 3: SEVEN CHANCES with THE PALEFACE (BOISTER performing, see special pricing)
JUNE 10: COLLEGE (Ray Brubacher performing)
JUNE 24: STEAMBOAT BILL, JR. with THE SCARECROW (BOISTER performing, see special pricing)

SPECIAL PRICING: Tickets for all "Boister Plays Buster" shows are $15 general admission; $12 discounted rate for students, seniors, and members of AFI; $5 children age 12 and under. No passes will be accepted. All other shows are regular price ($9.25/7.50) with passes accepted.

About Ray Brubacher
Brubacher brings a wealth of talent and judgment, as well as experience to the accompaniment of silent films. He began accompanying silent films while in high school and since then has played for the American Film Institute, National Gallery of Art, Library of Congress and many others. Ray Brubacher teaches piano and organ to private students and in his spare time serves as a crew member, photo archivist and chapel organist for the SS John W. Brown, America's oldest operating World War II Liberty Ship.

About Boister
Boister's performances of original scores for classic Buster Keaton films have won widespread praise from critics including Roger Ebert. Boister's spirited live shows have quickened pulses up and down the East Coast, and the band has appeared at a variety of venues, including the World Cafe, the Kennedy Center, numerous college campuses, and last years NXNE Festival in Toronto.

About Andrew Simpson
Andrew Simpson, composer, pianist, and organist, is associate professor and chair of the division of Theory and Composition at The Benjamin T. Rome School of Music of The Catholic University of America. He has created and performed scores for numerous films at the National Gallery of Art, and will be making his AFI Silver debut this May. Andrew Simpson is also co-founder of the Snark Ensemble, an instrumental group which is currently creating and recording new film scores for a forthcoming DVD box set, "Harry Langdon: Lost and Found," to be released in late 2007.

OUR HOSPITALITY
Live music by BOISTER

In this spoof on family feuds and genteel codes of honor, Keaton is a New Yorker surprised to learn he has inherited an estate down south. On the train he meets pretty Virginia Canfield (Natalie Talmadge) who invites him home for dinner. Keaton soon learns of his true lineage as the last surviving son of the McCay family, the Canfield's sworn enemies. A true family affair, Keaton's wife plays the heroine, his son plays Keaton as a baby and his father plays the locomotive engineer.

DIR Jack Blystone; SCR Clyde Bruckman. US, 1923, b&w, 74 min. NOT RATED

Sunday, May 6, 2:00

#62 on AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs
SHERLOCK JR. with THE BLACKSMITH
Live music by Ray Brubacher

Movie theater projectionist and amateur detective Keaton is dejected when he is falsely accused of stealing the watch of his best girl's father. Framed by his romantic rival, the dastardly "sheik," he unhappily goes back to the movie house and falls asleep in the projection room. Through a series of inventive camera tricks well ahead of their time, Keaton is transported into the film onscreen, envisioning himself as the triumphant wooer and crack detective Sherlock, Jr.

DIR Buster Keaton; SCR Clyde Bruckman, Jean Havez and Joseph Mitchell; PROD Joseph M. Schenck. US, 1924, b&w, 44 min. NOT RATED

Sunday, May 13, 3:30

Preceded by THE BLACKSMITH. When a blacksmith is arrested, his apprentice Keaton must take over with laugh-out-loud results.

#81 on AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs
THE NAVIGATOR
Live music by Andrew Simpson

After Keaton begged producer Joseph Schneck to purchase an old ocean liner to use as a prop on a film, he and comedic partner Clyde Bruckman came up with the story line of THE NAVIGATOR, Keaton's biggest commercial success. Pampered rich boy Keaton falls in love with a pampered rich girl. When she rebuffs his marriage proposal, he sails to Honolulu on a whim--unaware that she is on the same boat due to some strange and very funny circumstances.

DIR Donald Crisp and Buster Keaton; SCR Clyde Bruckman, Jean Havez, Joseph Mitchell; PROD Buster Keaton. US, 1924, b&w, 59 min. NOT RATED

Sunday, May 20, 4:00

#18 on AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs
THE GENERAL
Live music by Ray Brubacher

Keaton's most beloved comedic masterpiece was a critical and box office failure upon release. Proud confederate railroad engineer Keaton tries to join the army to make his girlfriend proud. When they reject him, deeming his profession a valuable southern asset, she rejects him too. When Northern spies steal his locomotive--and along with it his girl--Keaton springs into daring action. Deadpan, pitch-perfect comedic timing and Keaton's incredible physical talent result in one of the greatest silent-era comedies.

DIR/SCR Clyde Bruckman and Buster Keaton; PROD Buster Keaton and Joseph M. Schenck. US, 1927, b&w, 75 min. NOT RATED

Sunday, May 27, 3:30

SEVEN CHANCES with THE PALEFACE
Live music by Boister

Keaton is a young lawyer poised to inherit $7 million at 7 o'clock on his 27th birthday--if he is married. Rebuffed by his childhood sweetheart who thinks he only wants to marry her for the money, Keaton looks for a stand-in without success until his buddy prints his story in the local paper. Soon he is up to his eyes in women as he is chased by hordes of wannabe brides down the Los Angeles streets.

DIR Buster Keaton; SCR Clyde Bruckman; PROD Joseph M. Schenck. US, 1925, b&w, 56 min. English. NOT RATED

Preceded by THE PALEFACE: Keaton is a naive butterfly collector who inadvertently stumbles into a land dispute between a Native American tribe and greedy oil tycoons.

Sunday, June 3, 2:00

COLLEGE
Live music by Ray Brubacher

When Keaton arrives at school he learns that jocks get all the girls. Attempting to impress pretty co-ed Anne Cornwall, he tries an assortment of sports with varying degrees of hilarious failure. Out of pity, his dean gives him a shot on the rowing team where he somehow manages to become victorious. Infuriated, his rival Harold Goodwin kidnaps Cornwall out of revenge. Of course, Keaton comes to the rescue with his famed physical grace and athleticism.

DIR James W. Horne; SCR Bryan Foy and Carl Harbaugh; PROD Joseph M. Schenck. US, 1927, b&w, 66 min. NOT RATED

Sunday, June 10, 4:00

STEAMBOAT BILL, JR. with THE SCARECROW
Live music by Boister

Keaton is the sensitive son of a tough-talking steamboat captain who has waged a personal war against the wealthy owner of a ferryboat. When Keaton falls for the ferryboat owner's pretty daughter, both try to end their quarreling, but things seem irreparable when Keaton's dad punches the lady's father in the mouth. More classic sight gags abound--including a 3-story house that practically crushes Keaton, who is saved only because the house's window was left open!

DIR Charles Reisner; SCR Carl Harbaugh. US, 1928, b&w, 71 min. NOT RATED

Sunday, June 24, 2:00

THE CAMERAMAN
Live music by Ray Brubacher

The "Great Stone Face" portrays Luke Shannon, a "tintype" portrait photographer who decides to sign to the newsreel department in hopes of impressing beautiful Sally (Marceline Day), a secretary for MGM's newsreel department. However, his hand with a movie camera is not especially sure. He mistakenly double exposes a reel of film that results in battleships sailing down Broadway. His attempts to get footage of a Tong battle seem more successful until an organ grinder's monkey runs off with his film. Luke gets the axe before long, but he's not about to give up, and he tries to find another way to impress his lady love.

DIR Edward Sedgewick; SCR Clyde Bruckman; PROD Buster Keaton. US, 1928, b&w, 75 min. NOT RATED

Sunday, July 1, 4:00