Seven Chances

Production[edit]

Joseph Schenck bought the rights to Roi Cooper Megrue's play Seven Chances thinking it might be a good project for Keaton or for Norma, Constance or Natalie Talmadge. It was an enormous hit on Broadway and touring, and Schenck paid stage director John McDermott $25,000 with the promise he would direct the film. Schenck had Keaton make the film instead. Keaton hated the play and called it a sappy farce, but he owed money to Schenck and had to make the film to settle his debt.^[2]


Shooting began in January 1925.^[3]Keaton intended to finish with a fadeout of him still running from the mob of women, but wished he could think of a better ending. However, the preview audience laughed loudest when Keaton's character accidentally dislodged a rock, which struck two others, sending them tumbling down after the hero. Keaton had 150 papier-mâché and chicken wire fakes made in various sizes, up to 8 feet (2.4 m) in diameter, for what is now considered one of his most memorable sequences.^[4]Keaton disliked the film but thought the avalanche scene saved it. He cast Doris Deane as one of the "seven chance" fiancées, as a favor to his friend Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle (Deane was Arbuckle's fiancée).^[5]


Beale's Cut Stagecoach Pass appears in the film.^[6]