Fatty Arbuckle - Buster Keaton Shorts - 1917

Fatty Arbuckle - Buster Keaton Shorts - 1917 - 1920

Last year I had the chance to see Keaton’s classic Steamboat Bill, Jr in a theater and I thought it was wonderful. Of course, I have seen some Keaton films and shorts over the years but never in an organized manner. After this viewing, I decided to watch as many of the Keaton silent films as I could. Once sound came to the movies, Keaton was never the same. So that is what I am doing in chronological order. Amazingly most of his films are still in existence with many of them on Youtube.

Keaton started off as a sideman to Fatty Arbuckle who was already a star at the time. Keaton worked with him on 14 shorts from 1917 – 1920 before he went off on his own. Most of the shorts come in around 20 minutes. One of them - A Country Hero – has been lost. Here are some comments on the others.

Butcher Boy - 1917

I have been wanting to watch a lot of Buster Keaton for a while now and so I began with his very first appearance in this film from 1917. Keaton - real name Joseph Frank Keaton born in 1895 - was born into a vaudeville family and so learned his craft on the stage. In 1917 he met up with Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle and the two of them hit it off and became very good friends. Arbuckle was already a big star having been in film since 1909 and was one of the highest paid actors in the business working for Max Sennett in the Keystone Cops and then Paramount where he was being paid $1,000 a day. But in 1917 he set up his own company and asked Keaton to join him.

From the start Keaton began writing a number of the gags and showed remarkable agility - and wore his pork-pie hat. In this one Keaton gets the third most screen time with Arbuckle and comedian Al St. John who had already been working with Arbuckle for a few years. Later once films went Talkie he was in a ton of low budget Westerns - he has over 300 acting credits. In the film Arbuckle is the butcher boy in a grocery store and Buster comes in to buy sticky molasses and the comedy goes predictably from there till the entire shop is in shambles.

The Rough House - 1917

Here is Buster Keaton's second film with Arbuckle - they were to make 14 shorts together - and Al St. John is in this one as well. It still centers around Arbuckle as a dimwitted mama's boy - but Keaton gets more time and has a few nimble moments. There are some very clever gags here, but much of the film is basically chaos with the three actors constantly banging one another up.

His Wedding Night - 1917

This is the third collaboration between Roscoe Fatty Arbuckle and Buster Keaton. It runs about 19 minutes and is a little weird. Arbuckle's films were basically very simplistic plots covered with gags and pratfalls. Keaton was taking it all in. One of the first things he did when Arbuckle offered him a job was to ask to take the camera home where he then disassembled it and then put it back together. He wanted to know how it worked. He was quite mechanically minded and this skill was put to good use later on.

Arbuckle is a fountain pop drink server in a drug store and that means lots of chaos. He proposes marriage to the daughter (Alice Mann, who was to appear in the next two Arbuckle shorts) of the owner and is accepted, but his rival played by his real life nephew Al St. John doesn't take it sitting down - often falling down - but not sitting down. Keaton arrives on a bicycle balancing the wedding dress box on his head and of course crashes and does a flip over the handlebars. He also tries on the dress and is kidnapped by Al thinking he is kidnapping Alice and Roscoe almost marries him by mistake. At one point Roscoe chloroforms a female customer and kisses her a few times. Not something you would see in a comedy any more and not something that helped his case when he was tried for rape a few years later. He also has a mule sit on his head. Not too sophisticated but Keaton would add that later.

Oh, Doctor! - 1917

The fourth collaboration between Arbuckle and Keaton. 24 minutes running time.

This is an oddly ordinary film with something resembling a plot and fewer than usual comic bits. It also has Buster laughing at one point and crying at many points. Arbuckle is a doctor I.O. Dine (get it?) who receives a letter from his friendly mortuary to send more business their way. At one point to drum up customers he takes the break off his car and allows it to plunge into a crowd. Much of the film revolves around him losing at the race track and then a stolen necklace. His nephew Al St. John also appears.

Keaton plays his young son but still with porkpie hat. He doesn't get to do much in this film other than getting mistreated by Arbuckle. Which very much reflected Keaton's own upbringing. At the age of three Keaton joined the vaudeville act of his parents. It wasn't a particularly successful act but good enough to go from place to place and be part of a bill. Until Buster (a slang term in vaudeville for taking a fall) joined the act. The act basically consisted of his father throwing him around. At the age of three. He would get thrown into the orchestra pit. He would be tossed skyward only not to return until later when a stagehand brought him out and asked if "this was their property". Buster amazingly was never hurt and at a very young age learned how to take a fall and a tumble. This propelled the act to much more success. I mean who doesn't want to see a three year old thrown around?

Coney Island - 1917

The 5th short with Fatty Arbuckle and Buster Keaton. 25 minute running time.

Not much of a story here with three men - Arbuckle, Keaton and St. John - are all vying for the attention of one woman at Luna Park in Coney Island. Luna Park was an entertainment complex with rides and games. It opened in 1903 and closed in 1944 after it burnt down. An amusement park was opened in 2010 in Coney Island that named itself Luna Park. The main ride in the film is the Witching Waves which simulated the feeling of waves on a surface as it rolls you around. Other scenes take place on the beach and the dressing room. I wish there had been more filming of Coney Island.

Arbuckle as he seems to do in a bunch of his films cross-dresses and is romanced by St. John. Keaton laughs and cries again. And for no reason at all does a perfect back flip. In the end the film turns into a Keystone Cops bit. Arbuckle had performed in a number of them earlier in his career. This was to be their last film produced in New York. They set their eyes on Hollywood.

Out West - 1918

Out West is in fact shot out west. After producing their first five shorts in New York City, Arbuckle and Keaton decided to move their film company out to Hollywood where every one else was heading. Their first film shot there was A Country Hero but that film has apparently been lost. Out West was their second film shot in Hollywood and their seventh in total.

The film is a big step forward. It has much better production values, contains a plot of sorts and has some remarkable physical feats throughout. It is also quite funny with the usual pratfalls but also at times just visually witty.

It is a parody of Westerns with Arbuckle a hobo heading west on a train and Keaton is the owner of The Last Chance saloon. Indians and robbers show up. At one point there is some racist humor when a black man is forced to dance - this being the second film of theirs in which some racial humor crept in. Arbuckle for all his size shows some real physical ability in this one taking some falls, somersaults, hopping onto a horse and more. In the opening scene he is stowing away on top of a speeding train - he is discovered and after a chase across the cars he is tossed off after which he gets up, dusts himself off, lights a match by striking it against the moving train, lights his cigarette and jumps on the last car. Keaton in this one is straight-faced all the way through and has a few lovely moments.

The Bell Boy - 1918

This is the 8th film in the Arbuckle/Keaton short films. After the terrific previous film Out West, this one feels like it is back to frantic chaos and anarchy. In a good way. I wonder though back in those days when most comedies depended on pratfalls how long did audiences find it funny? I expect it was getting a bit tired perhaps pushing some of these stars like Keaton, Chaplin and Lloyd into feature films where they could expand the canvass of emotions.

This one has Keaton and Arbuckle working as bell boys in a hotel causing all sorts of mischief. One bit in which Arbuckle shaves and gives a haircut to a long-bearded man is rather clever as at one point he looks like Ulysses Grant, then Lincoln and finally Kaiser Wilhelm II. Arbuckle was only 5 feet 10 inches though around 300 pounds - but he towers over Keaton like the Empire State Building over the hotdog stand below. At times he picks up Keaton with one hand and just tosses him for feet like a watermelon. Keaton seems to be settling more and more into his Stone Face.

Later on they along with regular Al St. John stop a bank robbery and it is a tour de force of jumping through windows, hopping over walls, getting smacked in the face and just some great physical dexterity in particular from Keaton. You see something like this and you understand Jackie Chan when he said how influenced he was by Keaton.

Moonshine - 1918

This is the ninth film for Buster Keaton in his collaboration with Fatty Arbuckle. Apparently, all but six minutes of this 23 minute short was thought lost but they found a rather beat up old copy. It is up on YouTube as it seems most of these shorts are.

Fatty and Buster are two revenuers who are after a gang of moonshiners. And that is about it. Lots of shooting in the bottom. Not one of their best as it falls more into the absurd than a typical gag film. It breaks the fourth wall with its cards as it continuously reminds the audience that this is a movie. A couple decent gags though - a car stops and somehow 30 men come out of it - not sure how they did that; Keaton and Al St. John imitating monkeys and performing a remarkable tree climb; Keaton and Fatty on a promontory tumbling over one another and than tumbling over the edge.

Good Night, Nurse! - 1918

I continue to go through these Fatty Arbuckle/ Buster Keaton short films. This is their tenth collaboration. I have always been a huge fan of Keaton but that is almost entirely based on a few of his feature films that I saw years ago. But last year they had a showing here in Bangkok of Steamboat Bill and I was so overwhelmed by its ingenuity that I decided to try and get through as much of Keaton's silent filmography as I could. Amazingly, almost all of his features and shorts have survived.

He began his career with Arbuckle and stayed with him for 14 shorts before he moved on to his own productions. At this point I am quite looking forward to that. These films with Arbuckle were a learning experience for Keaton and he contributed many of the gags and does some great athletic feats in some of these but they are still Arbuckle's films. He was one of the biggest and highest paid stars of his time. But I keep wanting more Keaton and less Arbuckle.

That is especially true in this film in which Keaton has a fairly small role. Well, more when you realize from the credits that he was the woman with the umbrella. In a scene that makes one think of Steamboat Bill, the film begins with a huge rain storm with high winds and Fatty and Keaton, dressed as a woman, get all tangled up and blown around. Later Arbuckle is committed by his wife into the No Hope Sanatorium for his drinking problem. Keaton is a doctor who walks about in his white cover-all stained with blood and an orderly is carrying an amputated leg. After that there is lots of running around and some cross-dressing - something Fatty does a lot of the time.

The crazy woman is Alice Lake who is in a bunch of these Fatty/Keaton films and is quite the trooper allowing herself to often get tossed about. She was in loads of silent films but when the talkies came along her career nosedived and she was done by the early 30's. But she has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and in her hey day was making $2,000 a week, but by 1936 was arrested for being intoxicated and could not pay the $10 fine. In an interview she said "All gone: fame, fortune, and false friends. I guess they went in that order!"

The Cook - 1918

This is the 11th short (18 minutes) from Fatty Arbuckle and Buster Keaton with Al St. John and Alice Lake in supporting roles.

This is one of the more nonsensical of their shorts with a plot picked out of a crooked hat. It is almost surrealistic though I am sure that wasn't what they were aiming for - just plain silly is more like it. Arbuckle is the cook and Keaton the waiter in a high class restaurant. But it isn't for long. They destroy much of it, dance around making fun of a Theda Bara movie, eat spaghetti, get chased by a dog up a ladder, take rides on goat carts and fall in the water. The End. Not one of their best but Arbuckle gives Keaton equal time and Keaton seems to be quite enjoying himself.

Back Stage - 1919

This the 12th short film (21 minutes) from Arbuckle and Keaton is absolutely frigging brilliant. Great sight gags, pratfalls, stunts that come at you a mile a minute. This one feels much more Keaton than Arbuckle but Arbuckle is still the director - at least in name. It even has a smaller and safer version (with Arbuckle) of the famous stunt Keaton does in Steamboat Bill Jr, when the house falls on him and he is miraculously standing in the open doorway.

Arbuckle and Keaton are backstage hands in a vaudeville theater and the gags come a plenty when the strong man shows up bullying his assistant and a crazy legged dancer shows some amazing kicks and splits. But when the performers go on strike Arbuckle and Keaton decide to take on all their roles - male and female - and do the show. Chaos ensues but it is lovely chaos.

For Keaton of course this must have felt a bit like home. His parents were vaudeville performers and when Buster (vaudeville slang for taking a fall) was four years old he joined the act. It was a bit of everything with lots of physical comedy but also songs and dancing and even parodies of other acts. The act had never amounted to much until the four year old comedic prodigy joined the group. His father would throw Buster all over the theater - into the orchestra pit, up to the rafters where he was hopefully caught by a backhand stage. At an incredibly young age Keaton learned how to shelter his falls, how to take pratfalls - he was never badly hurt but social workers often tried to get charges of abuse levied against the father.

One of the bits in the film when the crazy dancer kicks off Fatty's hat was taken right from something Keaton's father did in their act. Buster stayed in the act for seventeen years until his father's drinking got too much and both he and his mother left the act. Then of course he soon ran into Arbuckle on the street. Buster was to later use his father in a number of small parts in his films - in Neighbors he plays Buster's father. Joe Keaton passed away in 1946.

The Hayseed - 1919

Arbuckle and Keaton were nearing the end of their collaboration. This is the 13th short film out of the 14 they made together. And from the looks of this one it was time to be moving on. No real high points here as Fatty and Buster help manage a country store and post office. There are the usual assortment of pratfalls and a few decent sight gags but not in a vehicle that holds up really well. No real plot. Arbuckle gets most of the time but Keaton is in there often falling down as well. The villain is not Al St. John as it almost always is - but instead the very lanky Jack Coogan who isn't particularly famous but his son Jackie was soon to became a child star with The Kid alongside Charlie Chaplin in 1921.

The Garage - 1920

This is the fourteenth and final film of the Fatty Arbuckle and Buster Keaton partnership. And it is one of their best. Coming in at 21 minutes, the first half is the usual series of pratfall and sight gags but then it feels like Keaton takes over and the film has some sublime funny moments that were near perfect as they shift from garage mechanics to firemen.

After The Cook in 1918 Keaton went off to war. Literally. He joined the army and was shipped to France. Fortunately, the war was winding down and he never had to go to the frontline. While he was away Arbuckle left the financial backing of Joseph Schenk and signed a deal with Paramount to make features. Schenk is another one of the amazing Jewish immigrants - from Russia - who came to America and got into the film business. He married and financed the films of Norma Talmadge who was a big silent screen star. Later in the 1930's he helped form 20th Century Fox. But for the past few years he had been financing the films of Arbuckle and Keaton.

The duo made three more films after Keaton returned and that was that. Arbuckle made a few feature films that seem not to have done very well. Paramount didn't really know what to do with him even going so far as to put him in a drama. Keaton continued to be financed by Schenk who allowed him to form his own production unit Buster Keaton Comedies. I am very curious to see how he progresses on his own in the next short films that he made.

Arbuckle's career was soon to come to a screeching halt. In a party that he threw in 1921 a woman died and Fatty was charged with rape and manslaughter though there was really no evidence. Later it was rumored that she had had an abortion and the after effects made her very sick and she collapsed. There were three trials and in the third Arbuckle was acquitted and the jury apologized to him. But it was too late. His career was done and he was in effect blacklisted. He directed a few films under a different name and in 1933 right after he signed a contract with Warner Brothers he died of a heart attack.

Keaton remained grateful to Arbuckle all his life. He gave a large percentage of all his profits to Arbuckle to the day Arbuckle died and had his picture on his desk till the day Keaton died.