Anne Cornwall
Mary Haynes
No subtitle track in this language
YouTube may apply your personal preferences. If needed, select your language under CC / Settings. YouTube controls playback availability, which may vary by region.
Audience rating
Loading ratings…
Synopsis
A brilliant student publicly dismisses athletics and loses the admiration of the young woman he hopes to impress. At college he reverses course, trying sport after sport despite an almost complete lack of aptitude. A place with the rowing team gives him another opportunity as academic expectations, paid work and romantic rivalry pull him in different directions.
Cast
Historical context
Buster Keaton turns the contrast between intellectual confidence and physical inexperience into a succession of athletic set pieces. One employment sequence uses blackface, reflecting a racist performance convention of the period that is part of the surviving film.
Sources and availability
The synopsis and editorial text were written for this collection. The references below were cross-checked to identify the film and its copy; each editorial section identifies its reference.
Work catalogued as public domain in the United States.
The reference concerns the original work. Restorations, colorization, translations and other territories may have different conditions. This site uses the player enabled by the channel.
Availability checked on September 10, 2026.
Photograph credit
Photographs cropped, resized and optimized as WebP, displayed in monochrome.
- Anne Cornwall — Unknown publicity shot; photographers are credited en masse in the book's endnotes but which photographer is responsible for which is not listed. · Public domain
- Harold Goodwin — United Artists · Public domain
- Buster Keaton — Unknown author · Public domain
