Steamboat Bill, Jr. gave Keaton his most famous stunt: a house front fell on him, and he stood in exactly the right spot to survive.
Steamboat Bill, Jr. was released in 1928, directed by Keaton and Charles Reisner. Keaton played Willie Canfield, a college student who returned home to work on his father’s riverboat, the Stonewall Jackson, in competition with a newer, larger boat owned by J. J. King. Willie also fell in love with King’s daughter, Kitty, played by Marion Byron.
The film’s climax was a cyclone that tore through the town. In its most famous shot, the front wall of a house fell on Keaton, but an open attic window passed around him, leaving him standing unharmed in the window’s space. The stunt was real, and it required precise measurement: if Keaton had stood a few inches either way, he would have been killed.
Steamboat Bill, Jr. was Keaton’s last independent feature before he signed with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It remains one of his best-loved films, and the falling house has become an image of silent comedy itself: a man who did not flinch, even when the world fell on him.