Fatty's New Role

In most of the 'Fatty' Arbuckle comedies I've seen Roscoe portrays a solid member of the bourgeoisie, usually married and employed in a respectable profession: grocer, baker, hotel manager, sometimes even a doctor or an officer of the law. In one late feature, Leap Year, Roscoe is an idle millionaire, but this seems to have been a rare exception; generally his circumstances were more modest, and when his profession was not specified his clothing and surroundings indicate a middle class lifestyle. In the aptly-named Fatty's New Role, however, Roscoe is a tattered hobo, not an elegant tramp like Chaplin but someone we'd call a "homeless person" today, a guy who sleeps wherever he can, bathes rarely, and lives on the generosity of others.

As the film opens Roscoe wakes up in a barn, then performs his "morning toilet" looking into a shard of broken glass. Suitably refreshed, he heads for a nearby tavern run by Schnitz (played by Mack Swain), apparently hoping for a free lunch. Schnitz promptly throws him out, but soon thereafter his regular patrons show him a news article about a vengeful hobo who has been blowing up local taverns from which he'd been ejected. Now Schnitz is worried. His raffish customers decide to play a prank on him by leaving him a note, supposedly written by Roscoe, saying that his tavern will be blown up at 3 P.M. this very day. Roscoe, meanwhile, has received a hand-out from a prosperous-looking Edgar Kennedy, and has used the money to buy a chunk of cheese the size and shape of a bowling ball. (One of my favorite moments in the film comes when an explanatory title offers the information: "HE LOVED CHEESE.") When Roscoe returns to Schnitz' bar just before 3 P.M., armed with this massive, bomb-like dairy product, he is treated like an honored -- and dangerous -- guest, and is permitted to eat and drink his fill.

That's the gist of the story, so one's degree of enjoyment of this film will depend on whether or not the scenario strikes you as funny. Personally, I enjoyed it. The gritty milieu is certainly offbeat for an Arbuckle comedy, although much of the humor is provided not by Roscoe himself but by Mack Swain, whose fearful reactions to loud noises and large packages supply most of the amusement -- admittedly, amusement of a rather dark variety, certainly for those of us watching this film in the Age of Terrorism. Mack Swain, like Ben Turpin, was a homely comic who relied heavily on his looks for laughs; thus, perhaps the funniest moment in Fatty's New Role is a simple tracking shot of Swain dashing away from an anticipated explosion. No gag is necessary, just an extended take of Mack Swain running. Surprisingly, Arbuckle plays his "new role" straight, so fans can cite this rather unusual turn as an example of his versatility, but nonetheless I prefer his traditional role: i.e. the naughty grown-up boy in a derby hat, dutifully fulfilling the expectations of middle-class respectability, but still gleefully sticking his tongue out at his Dragon Lady wife behind her back.

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.

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.

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.