Seven Chances

Seven Chances (1925)

Seven laughs a minute!

Struggling stockbroker Jimmie Shannon learns that, if he gets married by 7 p.m. on his 27th birthday -- which is today -- he'll inherit $7 million from an eccentric relative.

Date of release
1925-03-15
TMDB
7.5 / 10 (345)
Runtime
56m
Genres
Comedy, Romance
Director
Buster Keaton

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Box office: $598.3K
  • Based on: Seven Chances

Seven Chances is a 1925 American silent comedy film directed by and starring Buster Keaton, based on the play of the same name by Roi Cooper Megrue, produced in 1916 by David Belasco. Additional cast members include T. Roy Barnes, Snitz Edwards, and Ruth Dwyer. Jean Arthur, a future star, has an uncredited supporting role. The film's opening scenes were shot in early Technicolor. The film includes Keaton's famous rock avalanche sequence.

Production

Joseph Schenck bought the rights to Roi Cooper Megrue's play Seven Chances thinking it might be a good project for Keaton or for Norma, Constance or Natalie Talmadge. It was an enormous hit on Broadway and touring, and Schenck paid stage director John McDermott $25,000 with the promise he would direct the film. Keaton hated the play and called it a sappy farce, but he owed money to Schenck and had to make the film to settle his debt.

Keaton had intended to finish the film with a fadeout of him still running from the mob of women--500 of them were hired, Keaton claimed—but wished he could think of a better ending. However, the preview audience laughed loudest when Keaton's character accidentally dislodged a rock, which struck two others, sending them tumbling down after the hero.

He cast Doris Deane as one of the "seven chance" fiancées, as a favor to his friend Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle (Deane was Arbuckle's fiancée).

Beale's Cut Stagecoach Pass appears in the film.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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