Filmed in June 1922 and released September of the same year, Day Dreams comes down to us in a slightly incomplete state; pieces from different surviving prints were combined to create this reconstructed version. Besides the clever premise of juxtaposing the "daydreams" that Keaton's beloved imagines based on his misleadingly worded letters with the disastrous reality of his actual situations, the short is notable for an extended chase with the police not unlike that in the short Cops (1922). But the best-known gag is undoubtedly when the hapless hero winds up on the paddle wheel of a riverboat.

The French-born actress Renée Adorée (1898-1933) plays the love interest. Her career really took off in the mid-1920s, when she appeared in films such as The Big Parade (1925) and La Bohème (1926). Tragically, she later contracted tuberculosis and passed away at the age of 35. Joe Keaton, Keaton's father, plays the girl's father. Keaton's son Joseph Talmadge Keaton was born while the short was in production.

Producer: Joseph M. Schenck (uncredited)
Director: Eddie Cline, Buster Keaton
Screenplay: Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle (story, uncredited); Jeffrey Vance (titles, 1995 edition), Eddie Cline, Buster Keaton
Cinematography: Elgin Lessley (uncredited)
Cast: Buster Keaton (The Young Man), Renee Adoree (The Girl), Edward F. Cline (The Theater Director, uncredited), Joe Keaton (The Girls Father, uncredited), Joe Roberts (The Mayor, uncredited).
BW-18m.

by James Steffen