His Wedding Night

His Wedding Night (1917)

** (out of 4)

Fatty once again has to fight for the woman he wants to marry. Going through these films in order I've noticed that each one basically has the same storyline and always has a food fight. This is getting a tad bit boring but Buster Keaton has a small role and brings some laughs.

Oh Doctor (1917)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Dr. Fatty gets in trouble when a woman he flirts with turns out to be a thief with his wife's jewelry on her mind. The best aspect is Buster Keaton playing Fatty's son and being constantly abused by daddy.

Out West (1918)

*** (out of 4)

Spoof of the western genre has Fatty Arbuckle landing in a small town being over run by thugs. Buster Keaton plays the timid sheriff. There are minor laughs throughout the film but it really works due to its wonderful charm and the fact that the spoofs work for westerns even made within the past few decades. There's some off colored racial humor, which might insult some.

'Fatty' Arbuckle works in the drugstore where he serves the drinks and also services the gasoline pump. He is about to marry Alice, the daughter of the drugstore owner. Al St. John, again, stars as Fatty's rival. When he gets pushed aside by Alice he decides to kidnap Alice. Unfortunately they kidnap delivery boy (Buster Keaton) who were just showing off the wedding dress to Alice.

Nothing too original, clever or inventive - Fatty again fights over a woman with his rival Al St. John. Buster Keaton's role is literally just being thrown around by others.

Most interesting moment in the movie was a scene, where Arbuckle's character (who were supposed to be sympathetic and heroic) drugged the female customers in the store to make out with them. Something that definitely couldn't pass nowadays.

Roscoe Arbuckle and Buster Keaton made several enjoyable two-reel comedies together during Buster's apprenticeship as a filmmaker, but in my opinion His Wedding Night is not one of their better collaborations. It's an early credit for Buster, his fourth film, and he doesn't appear until almost the halfway point, but within moments of his entrance -- as a dress maker's delivery boy on a bike -- he promptly steals the show with a spectacular flip over the bicycle rack. (And he made such stunts look easy! Easy for him, anyway.) Buster also appears in drag, in a wedding gown no less, and milks his entrance in this costume for all it's worth.

Meanwhile, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle is up to his usual tricks. Here he's a clerk in a drug store, elaborately mixing malted drinks, flipping utensils in the air and deftly catching them. The location offers ample opportunity for of Keystone-style shenanigans, as when Fatty tussles with a mule, insults customers, bilks a rich man out of money for "gasoline" that is actually water, and once again engages in a rivalry with nasty Al St. John over a pretty girl. It's no mystery why Al St. John's character is always so unappealing in these comedies -- for one thing, when the girl jilts him he has a tendency to assault her, as he does here -- but it's remarkable that Arbuckle manages to be so likable when he behaves as he does. In this film, for instance, a running gag involving chloroform leads to a moment when Fatty deliberately renders a pretty girl unconscious so he can kiss her. You may or may not find that gag funny, but when he performs it Roscoe comes off like a naughty boy, not a pervert. Within a few years, of course, after the sex scandal that destroyed his reputation and his career, it would have been impossible for Arbuckle to have performed such a scene without stirring deeply unpleasant associations in viewers' minds.

Over all this film feels like a somewhat routine effort, not as inspired as the best Arbuckle/Keaton shorts produced for Roscoe's "Comique" company. For me it's marred by an interlude of racial humor near the beginning that leaves a sour after-taste. The scene involves a customer in the store, an African-American lady who is the butt of several gags -- literally, in one instance. Racial gags turn up frequently in silent comedy, and the scene in His Wedding Night is far from being the worst offender in the Comique series (that dubious distinction belongs to a mean-spirited sequence in Out West which ruins that film), but the bottom line where this comedy is concerned is that the material in question simply isn't funny.

The best Comique shorts, such as The Bell Boy and The Garage, are full of inventive gags and routines that still provoke laughs. His Wedding Night doesn't hold up nearly so well, but the limber young Buster Keaton provides it with some enjoyable moments, and he remains the best reason to watch.

This is another hilarious offering from Arbuckle, who plays a drugstore clerk in love with the pharmacist's daughter Alice (Alice Mann). Al St. John plays Fatty's rival for Alice. Buster Keaton plays a delivery boy who brings the wedding dress via bicycle. Buster models the wedding dress. St. John, thinking Buster is Alice, has his gang kidnap her ... er, him. This sets up a wild slapstick finish at the home of the Justice of the Peace.

There are crazy stunts galore in this two-reel film.

Some of the scenes probably could not be done today. Fatty pours chloroform into a perfume bottle and waits for a female customer to spray herself. He then springs a kiss on the unconscious girl. However, the gag is reversed somewhat when another female is apparently immune to the spray, and even drinks from the bottle. Another gag involves a male customer who is wildly effeminate. Also, St. John tries to choke out Alice.

For me, the cleverest gag is when Buster first arrives at the drugstore, and his eye is twitching. Fatty takes this as a "wink," winks back in understanding, and pours Buster a beer.

A strictly routine Arbuckle comedy in which most of the laughs are to be found following the belated entry of a young Buster Keaton, who is mistaken for store assistant Roscoe's bride-to-be. Modern-day viewers will no doubt find some racist gags and a scene in which Roscoe deliberately chloroforms a young woman so that he can kiss her as she sleeps offensive.