Time and again writers/directors will insert personal stories or feelings into their movies with a loose resemblance to their actual circumstances. Buster Keaton was no exception. At 25, the rising film star had fallen for one of the famous-acting Talmadge sisters, Natalie, whom he met while working alongside Roscoe Arbuckle in his Comique Studio. She had a variety of assignments at the studio, owned by her brother-in-law, Joseph Schenck, performing secretarial duties, including working on scripts as well as occasional screen appearances. Natalie's two sisters, Constance and Norma, Schenck's wife, were producing and acting in movies in the same building as Buster while their mother Peg was always keeping a close watch on her three daughters.
Buster and Natalie married on May 31, 1921, and were reportedly very happy together their first couple of years. He released his film, May 1922's "My Wife's Relations," the year after the wedding, just before Natalie delivered the couple's first baby, Joseph, in June. The short film looks at Buster, who unwittingly is dragged into a courtroom by a witness who thought she saw him break a window in the building. The witness, a hulking Irish woman played by Kate Price, appeared before the justice of the peace who only knows Polish, believing he was marrying the two. That legal bond sets off a hilarious situation where Buster has to live with her male family members, who physically abuse him until they think he's inheriting a fortune.
There had been no negative public references to how Buster got along with his in-laws. Even the comedian wrote, "In my entire life I never knew a family so devoted to one another as my in-laws were. They all worked and thought together as a team without conflict or jealousy." But the timing and the subject matter in "My Wife's Relations" raise suspicions after knowing how Buster's relationship with his wife became unsettling with the arrival of their second baby in February 1924. Soon after delivery, Natalie declared she didn't want any more children and moved into a separate bedroom apart from Buster.
Buster and Natalie married on May 31, 1921, and were reportedly very happy together their first couple of years. He released his film, May 1922's "My Wife's Relations," the year after the wedding, just before Natalie delivered the couple's first baby, Joseph, in June. The short film looks at Buster, who unwittingly is dragged into a courtroom by a witness who thought she saw him break a window in the building. The witness, a hulking Irish woman played by Kate Price, appeared before the justice of the peace who only knows Polish, believing he was marrying the two. That legal bond sets off a hilarious situation where Buster has to live with her male family members, who physically abuse him until they think he's inheriting a fortune.
There had been no negative public references to how Buster got along with his in-laws. Even the comedian wrote, "In my entire life I never knew a family so devoted to one another as my in-laws were. They all worked and thought together as a team without conflict or jealousy." But the timing and the subject matter in "My Wife's Relations" raise suspicions after knowing how Buster's relationship with his wife became unsettling with the arrival of their second baby in February 1924. Soon after delivery, Natalie declared she didn't want any more children and moved into a separate bedroom apart from Buster.