Charlot et Fatty dans le ring

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.

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.

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!

Roscoe Arbuckle takes on a prize fighter in this Keystone short, and somehow ends up firing guns while wearing boxing gloves during a rooftop chase. Plenty of frantic pandemonium, and a scene-stealing appearance from Charlie Chaplin as the referee, but it's all a bit messy.