The Paleface Trivia Quiz

Answer: Oil sharks conspire to steal their land.

At the time "The Paleface" was shot, it was typical for white actors in makeup to play characters of other races, so it's natural that Keaton chose his favorite comic foil, childhood neighbor Big Joe Roberts, to play the native chief. Roberts' hulking size made an amusing contrast to Keaton's small frame.

The exposition includes a flashback to a thug knocking a young native man on the head, taking a paper from his inert form, and leaving a large coin in his hand. "And that's how I persuaded him to sell the lease for a dollar!" he tells the oil shark. And the natives are given notice to leave their land.

Answer: He's collecting butterflies.

Buster comes in through the gate onto the natives' land, butterfly net in his hands. He greets two native men as he makes his way through their settlement in pursuit of his quarry. Soon every man in the village is following him. A beautiful maiden (Virginia Fox) gives him an interested glance before going into a teepee, but when Buster tries to follow her he walks straight into -- and bounces off of -- Chief Big Joe. Finally Buster brings his net down over Chief Big Joe's head -- but he was only catching a butterfly.

He shows it to the men, and puts it in his case.

Answer: A feather stuck in the band of his porkpie hat

The swastikas on the blanket are actually probably historically accurate, since many native American tribes used swastikas as symbols. When "The Paleface" was filmed, the Nazi usurpation of the symbol was still far in the future.

Buster's disguise, though transparent, works well enough. He joins the men in gathering firewood, and then in searching for the missing captive. It's only one particularly canny fellow who notices the white guy in the goofy get-up.

Answer: He makes a set of asbestos underwear.

Buster goes headfirst down the chimney. Inside the cabin we see his porkpie hat come out of the fireplace, followed by a tumbling Buster. He looks about for a moment with a rather daft expression on his face. Then his gaze lights upon a roll of asbestos. He goes to work.

Answer: He's under the door they just knocked down.

The whole group of men rush in, trampling the door with Buster underneath. Buster slips out from under the door, and out of the cabin. He goes running out, onto a slope where he tumbles down. He ends up sliding down the last of the slope, then goes flying out and lands halfway up a tree by the side of a road.

Answer: They do a war-dance in the white men's building.

Buster is now clad in his traditional Keaton baggy pants and vest ensemble, but with fringes and other decorations and a feather in the band of his porkpie hat. He enters the oil shark's building alone, demanding justice for his tribe. When they blow him off, he brings Chief Big Joe. "On with the dance?" Buster asks Chief Big Joe.

The rest of the tribe come in and they start their war dance, with Buster as conductor wielding Chief Big Joe's tomahawk like a baton.

Answer: He picks up the arrows and ponders them -- until he notices the one through his hat.

Modest Buster relocates a small shrub so he has some privacy when he's undressing. Once he's changed, he seems to like his dapper new look. But from a ridgetop, his friends spot him in his new getup and figure they can take the troublemaker out once and for all. Once Buster realizes he's not going to be able to stop the rain of arrows, he takes off running.

Buster had run off a steep drop earlier in the film -- which is a fairly common gag for him. He plows into bears in "Hard Luck" (1921), "The Balloonatic" (1923), and "The General" (1926).

Answer: One of them throws a tomahawk at him.

The tomahawk thunks into a tree Buster is bracing his hand against. He decides that he who turns and runs away lives to run another day.

Answer: He crosses the gorge by moving the few remaining slats on a rope bridge.

Of course, logic dictates that the pursuing tribe could have easily killed Buster by shooting at him or by cutting the ropes on the bridge, but instead they're stymied by his plan of escape. They don't even shake the bridge to knock him loose. His friends approach as Buster makes his way across. They recognize him and hold their fire. But Buster doesn't realize that he's been recognized, and he tries to run onto the bridge. He falls into the river and runs back to camp.

Keaton actually did do the stunt of falling from the bridge, onto a net below. One of his riggers had broken a leg doing the jump to test the set-up, but Keaton made the jump and emerged unscathed. Another shot has Keaton completing the fall and landing in the river. Either part of the stunt could have easily caused him serious injury.

The superstitious Keaton also believed that if he got dunked, it would guarantee a successful movie, so the fall from the bridge provides his lucky dunking for "The Paleface".

Answer: Buster and the maiden still locked in their kiss

The oil shark had left the lease in the jacket pocket. Buster pulls it out and sees that the land is for the Crow Feet Indians. It is victory for Little Chief Paleface and his friends. He turns to the maiden for the kiss.

Two years later, Buster and the maiden are in exactly the same lip-lock in exactly the same spot. Buster straightens up for a moment, takes a deep breath, then goes back for another two-year kiss.