Buster Keaton up to provide replacements, as happened to some other late-arriving divisions. During his time in uniform, he suffered an ear infection that permanently impaired his hearing. In February 1917, Keaton met Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle at the Talmadge Studios in New York City, where Arbuckle was under contract to Joseph M. Schenck. Joe Keaton disapproved of films, and Buster also had reservations about the medium. During his first meeting with Arbuckle, he asked to borrow one of the cameras to get a feel for how it worked. He took the camera back to his hotel room and dismantled and reassembled it.
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