Elgin Lessley Trailers
The General Trailer
Elgin Lessley (also credited as Lesly, Lessly, and Leslie) (June 10, 1883 - January 10, 1944) was an American hand-crank cameraman of the silent film era—a period of filmmaking when virtually all special effects work had to be produced inside the camera during filming. Though Lessley worked earlier with Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, and later with Harry Langdon, he is best known for the groundbreaking effects he produced with Buster Keaton, who dubbed him "the human metronome" for his ability to crank consistently at any requested speed.
Lessley's most striking effects were in The Playhouse (1921) and Sherlock Jr. (1924). In The Playhouse, through use of a specially shuttered lens and repeated back-cranking and re-cranking, Lessley allowed Keaton to appear as up to nine characters simultaneously, interacting with one another. In Sherlock Jr., Lessley's careful positioning of camera and actor in various locations produced the effect of a man stuck in a movie where his location keeps changing as he struggles to keep up. Lessley retired from filmmaking after shooting The Cameraman with Buster Keaton in 1928.
Most Popular Elgin Lessley Trailers
Total trailers found: 40
26 October 1919
Buster manages the store while Roscoe delivers the mail, taking time out for hide-and-seek with Molly.
11 January 1920
Roscoe and Buster operate a combination garage and fire station. In the first half they destroy a car left for them to clean.
12 February 1928
A wife, tired of her husband's non-stop carousing, sues him for divorce. The judge, however, comes up with a novel solution--he makes the husband take his wife's place in the household--including dressing like her--for 30 days to see what it's like to be his wife.
15 September 1918
Jennie is a slavey in a theatrical boarding house. To her the actors are all wonderful, but Montague Booth is the chief.
27 January 1917
A knock-off of those charming rustic comedies in which Roscoe and Mabel Normand would play young lovers.
15 July 1917
An inventor and his assistant build a robot that looks like their janitor, and everyone tries to profit off the invention.
18 March 1918
At the Elk's Head Hotel bellhops torment the lobby, each other and guests. The elevator is powered by a stubborn horse.
25 December 1926
During America’s Civil War, Union spies steal engineer Johnny Gray's beloved locomotive, 'The General'—with Johnnie's lady love aboard an attached boxcar—and he single-handedly must do all in his power to both get The General back and to rescue Annabelle.
17 April 1924
A film projectionist longs to be a detective, and puts his meager skills to work when he is framed by a rival for stealing his girlfriend's father's pocketwatch.
28 September 1924
The wealthy and impulsive Rollo Treadway decides to propose to his beautiful socialite neighbor, Betsy O'Brien.
10 September 1928
A photographer takes up newsreel shooting to impress a secretary.
28 August 1927
Harry, The Odd Fellow, is a tenement worker who lives alone in a shack alongside a warehouse and longs for the companionship of a wife and children like other men.
15 March 1925
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.
21 July 1922
Buster clowns around in a blacksmith's shop until he and the smithy get in a fight which sends the smithy to jail.
27 November 1922
In order to impress the father of a girl he is keen on, a young man goes to the city in search of work.
19 November 1923
A young man falls for a young woman on his trip home; unbeknownst to him, her family has vowed to kill every member of his family.
07 September 1919
Roscoe and Buster give a bullying Strongman the what-for, but after the performance troupe quits it's up to Fatty and Buster to keep the show going.
01 October 1922
Botany major Buster mistakenly graduates in electrical engineering and is hired to wire a new home.
24 September 1923
The rituals of courtship, romantic rivalry, and love play out three times as a man vies with a villain for the girl.
29 August 1920
Newlyweds receive a build-it-yourself house as a wedding gift—and the house can, supposedly, be built in "one week".
01 November 1925
With little luck at keeping a job in the city a New Yorker tries work in the country and eventually finds his way leading a herd of cattle to the West Coast.
22 January 1923
Buster and Phyllis endure a number of outdoor adventures trying to prove to each other their survival skills.
15 May 1921
A series of misadventures occur when Buster is mistaken for a criminal on the lam.
18 April 1921
Buster is thrown off a train near an amusement park. There he gets a job in a shooting gallery run by the Blinking Buzzards mob.
01 March 1923
In an attempt to forget his lost sweetheart, Buster takes a long trip at the sea when he's caught by pirates.
28 August 1922
A mix of guns and mistaken identity leads to chaos in this satirical parody of William S. Hart's melodramatic westerns, finding Buster in the frozen north - "the last stop on the subway".
19 November 1926
A meek Belgian soldier (Harry Langdon) fighting in World War I receives penpal letters and a photo from "Mary Brown", an American girl he has never met.
12 December 1920
The Romeo and Juliet story played out in a tenement neighborhood with Buster and Virginia's families hating each other over the fence separating their buildings.
11 March 1922
Buster Keaton gets involved in a series of misunderstandings involving a horse and cart. Eventually he infuriates every cop in the city when he accidentally interrupts a police parade.
07 November 1920
Two farmhands compete for the love of the farmer's daughter.
26 March 1927
Harry Shelby has been kept in knee pants for years by his overprotective parents, but the day finally comes when Harry is given his first pair of long pants.
27 October 1920
A young golfer is mugged by an escaped convict and finds himself in a prison where he foils a jailbreak.
15 May 1922
Buster and a woman are mistakenly married and her initially unfriendly family begins to treat him nicely when they come to believe he has a large inheritance awaiting him.
21 February 1921
A bank teller becomes involved with a hold-up, counterfeiters and a theatrical troupe posing as spooks in a haunted house.
14 March 1921
A down on his luck young man makes several attempts at committing suicide but fails them too. He then finds himself becoming more confident through a series of petty adventures, to such an extent that this becomes his undoing.
05 February 2026
Buster Keaton’s 1924 comedy classic is reimagined with R.E.M. 's alt-rock masterpieces Monster (1994) and New Adventures in Hi-Fi (1996).
21 March 1926
A poor cobbler's son enters a $25,000 cross-country hiking contest sponsored by the footwear company that has nearly bankrupted his father.
26 February 1921
A man goes to work at a curate's house who is in denial about his poor social background.
30 December 1917
To decide a wager, two young millionaires decide to take a vagrant from a lodging house and give him the name and wealth of one of the pair, to see what he will do.
