Moonshine Trivia Quiz

Answer: A crowd of armed men, who line up in formation

"Moonshine" is a meta-film -- a two reeler that tells a story while spoofing the conventions of two-reelers. It also plays with things that are only possible in film, like the army of men emerging from the car. I counted 49 of them. The gag was easily done. Keaton had the cameraman, George Peters, tape off half the lens and film half of the car with men getting out, as they filed in from the other side -- which wasn't being filmed. Peters then back-cranked and masked the other half. All he had to do then was film the other side of the car just sitting there to complete the illusion.

According to Keaton biographer Edward McPherson, another director tried to one-up (or rather, multi-up) Buster by having over 100 men pile out of a car with a similar trick, but the result was dismal: the side of the car the men got out of bounced with their weight, while the other half, filmed while nothing was happening, stayed stock-still. Keaton had avoided the problem -- which his keen mechanical mind had foreseen -- by steadying the car with jacks before shooting the gag.

Answer: Fatty digs him out with a pickax.

Continuity screw-up: Buster's hat comes and goes as he dangles from the rocky outcropping. When the fall from the escarpment is over, all we can see of Buster are his hands and his slap shoes, wriggling like sea anemones.

Answer: Fatty hangs him by his feet from a tree.

Fatty just leaves Buster hanging and goes about his business. Later on we'll come back to Buster and find him still hanging by his feet, right where Fatty left him.

Answer: Al seems to materialize out of thin air as he walks toward the camera.

There's never any explanation as to why this happens, but you can clearly see Al materialize as he walks toward us. George Peters had to have cranked the landscape without Al, back-cranked, and then slowly opened the aperture as Al walked toward him from a short distance away. Until Al fully materializes, you can see the shrubs behind him through his transparent legs.

The effect makes Al's character even creepier than usual in a film in which Al achieves probably his creepiest performance.

Answer: He tickles her feet.

Alice finds Al about as charming as you'd expect any woman to find him. She kicks him in the head, sending him over backward. Al flips her out of the hammock and she smacks him. Alice is a pretty feisty character.

Answer: Alice

Fatty breaks up the fight -- Alice's father beating on her, and Alice fighting back. For a moment it looks as if Fatty is defending the girl, then he scolds her. "Ungrateful daughter! How dare you strike your father!" And he picks her up and gives her a dunking.

Answer: "Look, this is only a two-reeler. We don't have time to build up to love scenes."

"This is crazy! You beat up my daughter and she jumps into your arms!" Jud cries in perplexity. But he accepts Fatty's rationale. "In that case, go ahead. It's your movie. I wash my hands of both of you."

Answer: He stops to roll a cigarette.

Buster never gets to smoke his cigarette -- he gets interrupted by Al's gun in his face. Buster sneezes, blowing tobacco into Al's eyes. Al drops the gun, which Buster picks and hands back to him before noticing Al's distress. Buster thoughtfully helps Al clear the tobacco out of his eyes.

Answer: A monkey

Though not as impressive as his simian transformation in "The Playhouse" (1921), Buster's performance is still striking, especially considering that it was done without the help of makeup or costume. Buster leaps into a tree, and Al chases him up and down among the branches.

Answer: It's an elegant Victorian parlor.

The cellar is tastefully furnished, complete with piano and accent table. Fatty looks around and pinches himself to make sure he's awake. The moonshiners, upstairs in the shack, dress in tuxedos for supper. And Alice, who until this point had been wearing burlap, comes in wearing a fashionable gown to serve Fatty his dinner.

Answer: A handgun

She brings him his dinner on a tea cart, then pulls the gun out of her bodice. "You're in danger here!" she says. Fatty wraps the gun in a napkin and eats his dinner.

Answer: He fakes a suicide and escapes when they haul his supposedly dead body out.

He picks up a copy of "The Count of Monte Cristo" and decides that if playing dead worked for a Dumas character, it can work for him. He covers his face with catsup, fires the gun, and gets hauled off and dumped in the river.

He emerges from the river, to the applause of Buster.

Answer: Fatty

For some reason Al and the moonshiners ignore Buster and just haul Fatty back to the shack, where they tie him to a chair and light a fuse on a can of gunpowder. Fatty frees his arm, picks up the fuse to light a cigarette, then puts the fuse back on the can.

Answer: The cabin explodes, the the film runs backward and all is well for the occupant.

The inter-title reads, "Fatty deserves great acclaim for the scene where the cabin explodes and automatically reassembles itself." Fatty walks out unscathed. The moonshiners pull their guns, but Buster, evidently fed up with the whole thing, just pulls out his own revolver and shoots them down like ducks in a shooting gallery.

Answer: Buster

Fatty has just shot Al by bending his rifle barrel so he could shoot around the corner of the building. "You've proven yourself a hero," declares the inter-title. "You may now marry this beautiful girl." But Fatty forgot to mention something. He's already married. By default, the girl goes to Buster. We see the faintest hint of a Keaton smile as he waves goodbye to Fatty -- only go have Alice grab him by the ear and drag him into the shack. Maybe this wasn't such a lucky break for Buster after all.