Fatty Again

Fatty experiences several reverses of fortunes in this boarding house story. He is first ejected for failure to pay his board. He then fixes up a postal card offering himself a handsome salary and is warmly welcomed back by the girl's parents. When the truth becomes known that he is really a sideshow barker, they again turn on him. This is true to certain phases of life and quite amusing throughout. - The Moving Picture World, October 17, 1914

Roscoe Arbuckle is refused boardinghouse breakfast because he hasn't paid his bill. His landlord also begins to remove things from his room. But Arbuckle gets a post card offering him his old job at $5 a week. A few seconds with a pencil, and it's $500 -- and the attitude at the table changes.

Roscoe had begun directing his movies at Keystone a few months earlier. So far, he hadn't done much to distinguish himself behind the camera, but still remained popular in front of it, so long as he stuck the hated "Fatty" in the title. Still, this one seems less chaotic than many a Keystone in the period. The following year he would move his operations to the East Coast, and turn out some very interesting work. Some have suggested that it was getting out of reach of Mack Sennett that made his more venturesome work possible.