Neighbors

The Flower of Love could find no more romantic spot in which to blossom than in this poet's Dream Garden.

—opening card

In this 1920 two-reeler, Buster Keaton and Virginia Fox are a lower-class Romeo and Juliet who live in neighboring tenements.

This film can be seen in its entirety at Google Video.

Not to be confused with the 1981 Black Comedy feature of the same name, which starred Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi, nor the long-running Australian soap opera.

Tropes used in Neighbors include:

• Amusing Injuries
• Banana Peel
• Banister Slide
• Bedsheet Ghost
• Bring It
• Chase Scene
• Dragged by the Collar
• Dynamic Entry
• Dysfunctional Family: "Her father's abused her long enough; Now I want to marry her and take her home to my father."
• Feuding Families
• Girl Next Door: Or at least in the building across the alley.
• Heavy Sleeper
• Human Ladder
• Improvised Weapon: Specifically, a Broomstick Quarterstaff.
• Improvised Zipline
• Leet Lingo: An Older Than Television example -- Buster replies to a note that says "I love you" by scrawling "2" at the end and returning it.
• Literal Ass-Kicking
• Mistaken Message
• Once-Acceptable Targets: The black-face jokes, and the black family fleeing the Bedsheet Ghost.
• Parental Marriage Veto
• Sarcasm Mode: The opening intertitle (see above) is followed by an iris open to a bare dirt lot bisected by a wooden fence.
• Separated by the Wall
• Slapstick
• Unfortunate Implications: There are some black-face jokes when Buster is smeared with dirt and, later, paint, including his performance of a minstrel show-style dance.
  • That kind of black-face joke would be harder to do today.
  • Invokes the phenomenon of Profiling.
• Unwilling Suspension: Buster is briefly pinned to a clothesline by his shoes.
• Wall Crawl
• Watch Out for That Tree
• You Fail Physics Forever