The Taming of the Snood Trivia Quiz

Answer: Hats

A snood is a woman's hair net. Though Buster clearly raided the hat collection from the Columbia wardrobe department, there's nary a snood in sight.

The movie was supposed to actually center on Buster's failing hat shop, but ended up drifting off into other territory.

Answer: A ring

The film opens with a headline about a jewel heist. Miss Wilson, the thief, ducks into Buster's hat shop to hide from the cops, then ditches the diamond in the band of Buster's porkpie.

Buster's business is so lousy, he has his hats marked 4/3 off. He ends up paying his customer $3 to buy his hat. The original script had Buster's mirrors repossessed; in the film, he explains that they haven't been delivered yet. Whatever the reason for the lack of mirrors, Buster thoughtfully provides a tub of water -- "Nature's own looking-glass" -- which he accidentally douses Miss Wilson with. Mopping her off afterward is ad-libbed.

Answer: She dumps an entire dustpan of dirt all over the floor while she's dancing.

Critics -- and Buster's wife Eleanor -- roundly denounced Elsie for her lack of talent, but Buster defended her because she could do a good pratfall. Elsie actually does a couple of Buster's standard gags in this movie -- such as picking up her feet and putting them on a table before falling. Buster seemed to enjoy working with Elsie in this scene, which was largely ad-libbed; if you watch frame by frame, you'll catch a fleeting, quickly-suppressed smile on his face.

We also see a continuity error -- the dirt Elsie had dumped magically disappears from the floor and is never seen again.

Answer: He tries to revive her after a blow to the head, but gives her too much restorative.

Elsie galavants, a stunt double trips and goes head-first into the wall, and Buster lifts Elsie into his arms to offer a restorative. He gets distracted by a parrot, though, and gives the maid much more of a dose than he'd intended.

Answer: A table

Buster's father, Joseph Keaton V, billed himself as "The Man with a Table", later incorporating his wife and son into the act. Lest anybody wonders what anybody could do in a vaudeville act centered around a table, Buster and Elsie give us a glimpse. The director gives so much time to the ad-libbing that Buster and Elsie do around the table that scenes centering on the original plot -- Buster's failing hat shop -- are cut.

Prior to making Columbia shorts with Buster Keaton, Elsie had been an "eccentric dancer" on stage. She manages to fall into a pretty impressive split during her drunk routine, flipping Buster over her head.

And Buster himself is in pretty good shape for a recovering alcoholic in his mid-40s, hoisting Elsie up onto his shoulders.

Answer: Behind the curtain

In maneuvers recalling the scene in "Spite Marriage" (1929), where Buster puts his drunken bride to bed, Buster tries to prop Elsie up, with intermittent success. Meanwhile Miss Wilson takes the parrot into another room to hide the stolen item on him.

Answer: She pulls a gun on him.

The entire window-ledge scene is done with rear projection, so it lacks the excitement of a Keaton Studios short, but Buster still manages to show us a few of his tricks. And the maid, though vapid and drunk, does her best to rescue the strange little man who delivered the hat.

Watch the rear-screen. The same stock shot shows behind Buster, no matter how far he falls.

Answer: The parrot knocks it down while trying to hide.

Buster does the resulting fall with his typical understatement. He doesn't flail or cry out. He simply lets his face go blank and his heels slide off the ledge, which he catches with his fingers as he falls past. Stock shots of the streets of Los Angles loom beneath him.

Answer: Back in Miss Wilson's apartment

Yes, after falling at least 60 feet, and climbing up only about ten feet, Buster ends up coming back in the same window he went out. This is especially bizarre given the gag involving a workman, who shoves a board out a window into Buster -- who was climbing back onto the ledge he'd fallen from in the first place. He should have been outside the room where Miss Wilson took the parrot. To top off the spatial absurdity, the parrot, who had flown up to a ledge above Buster to knock down the flower pot, flies up yet again to perch on the flagpole that Buster had fallen at least 50 feet to land on.

In every single shot outside the windows, Buster is in front of exactly the same back projection shot.

Answer: One of the police detectives

Buster and the maid faint, presumably in terror. Miss Wilson faints because Buster hands her the stolen ring in front of the cops. And one of the cops, excited at the prospect of a promotion, also faints.

The movie ends here, instead of back at Buster's hat shop, because of all the time Buster and Elsie had taken with their ad-libbing in the drunken maid scene. Fortunately for us, the director went with Buster rather than the script, giving us a look into The Three Keatons' vaudeville routine.