Fatty's New Role

When hobo Roscoe Arbuckle is found to be lacking coin, he's thrown out of Mack Swain's bar. Some of his customers play a joke on Swain, writing him a note that a bomb will show up at three. Later, when Arbuckle shows up again with some money, Swain mistakes the cheese he's carrying for a bomb.

It's a set-up for Arbuckle to do some of his gags in his usual delightful manner. Chaplin would set them up to show off his grace; Keaton would build them up into huge, realistic-looking sets. Arbuckle just did the gag and moved on to the next one. All three methods have their points.

Fatty's New Role (1915)

*** (out of 4)

At times hilarious comedy from Keystone has a hobo (Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle) going into a bar to try and get some of its free food but the owner (Mack Swain) kicks him out. To play a prank on the owner, a few people there tell him that the hobo was actually a madman who has been bombing places that kick him out. FATTY'S NEW ROLE is certainly right as we get to see Arbuckle in a whole new light and I thought he did a wonderful job with the transformation. Playing a drunken bum was actually a great role for the comedian as he gets off to a great start as he wakes up with some chickens and he really delivers throughout the film. His performance is certainly the main reason to watch this and especially towards the end when he goes back into the bar and doesn't realize why everyone leaves him there alone. Swain also does a very good job in his part of the owner who fears that his place is going to be bombed any moment. The entire subject has a somewhat dark tone to it but I think this leads to some very big laughs. This here certainly shows Arbuckle at the top of his skills.

In experimenting with a new screen persona for Roscoe Arbuckle, this movie produces some mildly amusing results. Arbuckle had more than enough talent to play any number of character types, so he does a solid job here as well. But the character is not as likable or as interesting as were most of his other roles in the era. The main interest in this movie now may be its ironic and rather self-referential title.

Arbuckle plays a drunken vagrant who unwittingly becomes part of an elaborate practical joke that some bar patrons pull off on a saloonkeeper. Arbuckle gets some good moments of solo pantomime, and Mack Swain as the saloonkeeper has some amusing reactions to events. Otherwise, the actual story doesn't have all that much to offer.

It's watchable, and it is one more demonstration of Arbuckle's versatility, but he made many other movies that offer much more than this one does in terms of entertainment value.

Underneath his hobo greasepaint, FATTY ARBUCKLE is hard to recognize since he usually plays a working class guy, often teamed with MABEL NORMAND. Here he's a street hobo looking for handouts who inadvertently becomes suspected of being "the bomber" when he waltzes into MACK SWAIN's bar with a cheese Swain thinks is a bomb.

That's the set-up and it's a thin one on which to hang a plot, even for a short film. This being the Age of Terror, as someone else observed, it's not exactly a "feel good" sort of comedy.

It's hard to recognize SLIM SUMMERVILLE behind the bar and I never did recognize EDGAR KENNEDY as the generous man who offered the cheese. But the sad fact is that Arbuckle's hobo is never an appealing creature, unlike the gifted Charlie Chaplin who was able to make so much more of that sort of character.

This is one you can miss without missing anything.

While the plot of Fatty supposedly having a bomb coming back to a bar after being rejected earlier because he wanted free lunch may not strike one as funny today in this time and age, I still thought the results were still humorous whenever bar owner Mack Swain thought anything, like a football or a dropped plant, was an explosive hitting at or near his place. Mr. Arbuckle here is a bit different from his usual character and costume in that he has 5 o'clock shadow and is dressed like a bum (or tramp for those British reading who use the B-word to mean butt). As usual, he's quite funny with the way he mixes drinks and takes one from a small glass and then one from a bigger one. But it's Swain who provides most of the hilarity with his reactions. So it's largely for him that I recommended this Mack Sennett/Keystone comedy short.