The Knockout

This is a Fatty Arbuckle short in which there is a special appearance of Charlie Chaplin late in the film as a fight referee. Both comedians were in the beginning of their film careers and because of this they still hadn't really developed their characters. So, in many ways this looks nothing like a later film by either--Chaplin is not the Little Tramp and the often sweet characters Arbuckle plays is not evident here. Instead, a lot of action occurs on screen with little regard, at times, for plot or humor. You can really tell that the director just yelled "action" and told the guys to improvise. However, unlike SOME early Keystone efforts there is at least some plot and a few interesting moments, hence the score of 4. It's not good, but compared to what these two were making in 1914, it's better than average.

UPDATED AS OF 7/06: I just saw this short again, but this time the movie was dramatically different--with maybe ten more minutes of movie that gave it more coherence and watchability. This was the version from Mackinac Media in their "Forgotten films of Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle" collection. This isn't a total surprise, as in the early days of comedies, there usually existed several different prints and they were often cut and pasted to suit the needs of the theaters--an awful but common practice. I have seen this with several of Chaplin's shorts as well--and the versions were so different that they were like two different films. It is a terrible disservice to the memory of the actors and everyone else involved with the movie. As I mentioned above, this movie has a lot more plot in this version and if quite likable. Heck, Al St. John, who was an important part of the film, wasn't even in the first version I saw!!! What a shame.

Roscoe Arbuckle, ably supported, makes barrels of fun in this two-reel comedy release. In its early stages, the story has a particularly well-connected plot, but things go to smash a little in this line when a big chase is introduced in the second reel. This chase, as well as a comedy prize fight, is unusually funny. - The Moving Picture World, July 4, 1914

I saw a new 32-minute restoration of this film (courtesy of the Chaplin Keystone restoration project) and came away with the feeling that half an hour was too long; the film degenerates into endless repetitive scenes that the more mature comedy shorts of the 1920s would have trimmed drastically to greater effect. However, reading other users' comments, I get the impression that the material previously edited out of "The Knockout" was actually the early, plot-based part of the picture -- hardly an improvement!

There are some funny bits; chiefly those that are allowed to stand as one-off gags and not over-milked by repetition. Don't (as if this needed mentioning!) look for realism -- the film clearly features the pair of six-shooters with the largest number of consecutive charges in the world, for a start...

There is, incidentally, no knockout in this boxing match. Much other activity, though; including Minta Durfee as a girlfriend with a decided taste for fisticuffs, Charlie Chaplin in a long-shot cameo as the referee, and a brooding Mack Swain apparently having trouble with his moustaches.

This short silent comedy features a great, large cast, and many hilarious scenes. The large number of characters help support a plot more complicated than the average 1914 Keystone comedy.

For a 1914 Keystone, this has it all, or almost all: cartoon violence, street fights, fraud, romance, a cross-dressing heroine, Arbuckle's acrobatic slapstick, a (brief) love triangle, death threats, menace, the funniest boxing match of the decade, with Chaplin as a guest star and the Keystone Kops! The last ten or so minutes in particular (of the 25 minute version I saw) were outstanding: densely packed with ludicrous action and surprising gags. There's easily enough going on to reward multiple viewings. It's one of Chaplin's best Keystone films (though he's only in a few minutes), one of Arbuckle's best Keystone films and has the funniest Keystone Kops sequence of the handful I've seen.

Recommended!

The Knockout (1914)

*** (out of 4)

Nice short from Keystone has Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle having to defend his girlfriend but he soon gets double crossed into entering the boxing ring with a professional champion. THE KNOCKOUT really isn't a good movie as there are so many things wrong with it but at the same time you have to give the film credit for its final five-minutes as well as the importance that Charles Chaplin brought to it. It seems like the first fifteen-minutes were fairly uneventful except for a rather funny fight that Arbuckle gets into defending his woman. From this point on we see a bunch of nothing and for the most part there's really nothing interesting happening up to the fight. Once the fight happens is when the film really picks up and a lot of the credit has to go to Chaplin who plays the referee who doesn't seem to know what he's doing. It's funny to watch this thing because you can see the old-fashioned Keystone ways pretty much going out the window in favor to the type of comedy that Chaplin would be doing from this point on. This here is also worth watching for the performance of Arbuckle who is extremely fast on his feet for such a big man and he really gets to show his comic grace.