Rather by accident, Buster (Keaton) gets his hands on another man's
(Steve Murphy) diploma as an electrical engineer, and accepts a job to
electrically fix up a house only because he has taken a fancy to the
homeowner's (Joe Roberts) daughter (Virginia Fox). What Buster does come
up with in the shortest of time is remarkable though, a house full of
electric gadgets, from a self-setting pool table and a self-emptying and
-filling pool, toan escalator with variable speeds and an electric toy
train used for serving the dishes at the dinner table. However, when the
house's owner wants to present his miracle house to his friends, the
actual owner of Buster's diploma, who feels himself cheated out of a job,
has caught up with Buster, and nw he sabotages the demonstation at every
twist and turn - which makes the houseowner so mad that eventually Buster
is removed from the place by being shot out via the sewage ... More
than anything else, this film evidences Buster Keaton's fascination with
machines and all things mechanic, as most of the film's sight gags are
actually devices taken out of their context to hilarious results, and
man's not often all that fortunate handling of them.. As with most of
KEaton's shorts, the story is not yet allowed to develop to its fullest
potential, butz several of the gags and setpieces are priceless
nevertheless.
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