Instrumentation

1(=picc).1(=ca).2(I=fl.II=bcl).1 - 1110 -pno(=harmonium) - strings (2.2.2.2.1)

Availability

Full score and parts for hire

Programme Notes

Starring: Buster Keaton, Natalie Talmadge
Director: John G. Blystone
Production company: Metro USA, 1924
Film Print: 35mm tinted print available from Cohen Film Collection (N. America) and Park Circus (Rest of World) (Film Speed: 22 frames per second)
Recorded for Video

Our Hospitality has a more sophisticated plot and greater comic subtlety than many of Keaton's better-known films. It opens with a dramatic prologue showing a 19th-century family feud - and develops into an enchanting comedy-thriller involving truly astonishing stunts. There is a surprising emphasis on period authenticity. The depiction of 19th-century New York City will be hilarious to contemporary inhabitants of the metropolis, and for the long railway journey which forms the centrepiece of the film (and from which a surprising amount of comic mileage is drawn) a precise reproduction of an early locomotive was used. Keaton's wife, Natalie, the sister of the celebrated stars Norma and Constance Talmadge, plays the female lead, his son is the baby and his father plays the engine driver.

Our Hospitality

Sodankylä City Hall (Sodankylä, Finland)

Lapland Chamber Orchestra/John Storgårds

Our Hospitality

Concert Hall, Korundi House of Culture (Rovaniemi, Finland)

Lapland Chamber Orchestra/John Storgårds

Our Hospitality

Isaac Theatre Royal (Christchurch, New Zealand)

Christchurch Symphony Orchestra/Marc Taddei

Our Hospitality

Royce Hall, University of California, Los Angeles (Los Angeles, CA, USA)

Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra/Timothy Brock

Our Hospitality

Luzerner Theater (Lucerne, Switzerland)

Luzerner Sinfonieorchester/Rick Stengårds