Buster Keaton to have a comic slant. After Keaton's successful work with Arbuckle, Schenck gave him his own production unit, Buster Keaton Productions. He made a series of two-reel comedies, including "One Week" (1920), "The Playhouse" (1921), "Cops" (1922), and "The Electric House" (1922). Keaton then moved to full-length features. Keaton's writers included Clyde Bruckman, Joseph Mitchell, and Jean Havez, but the most ingenious gags were generally conceived by Keaton himself. Comedy director Leo McCarey, recalling the freewheeling days of making slapstick comedies, said, "All of us tried to steal each other's gagmen. But we had no luck with Keaton, because he
Diane Keaton again centered on her character's unimportance in the film. "The Washington Post" wrote: "Even though she is authoritative in the role, Keaton suffers tremendously from having no real function except to nag Michael for his past sins." In 1993, Keaton starred in "Manhattan Murder Mystery", her first major film role in a Woody Allen film since 1979, having made a cameo in 1987's "Radio Days". Her part was originally intended for Mia Farrow, but Farrow dropped out of the project after her split with Allen. Todd McCarthy of "Variety" commended her performance, writing that she "nicely handles her sometimes buffoonish