The Knockout

The second half or so of this Keystone comedy is quite enjoyable, with a lot of good material. The first half is sometimes amusing, but for the most part it really only serves to set up the last part. Roscoe Arbuckle was skilled at performing almost any kind of comic material, but he is much more fun to watch when he has something good to work with. Charlie Chaplin's appearance in the last part of the movie also adds quite a bit.

The setup has Arbuckle getting hoodwinked into a boxing match with a champion opponent. It takes rather a while to prepare for the 'main event', and some of the material in the first half really isn't that creative. But once the match begins, with Chaplin appearing as a timid, hapless referee, things really get rolling. It's a lengthy, amusing sequence that's not unworthy of being mentioned with the boxing sequences in some of Chaplin's own movies. It's well worth watching this part over again to catch all of the subtle gags that Chaplin throws in.

Arbuckle is still the star here, though, and it ends up being a decent showcase for him to perform slapstick and feats of agility, plus a few mannerisms and facial expressions. It would have been better if some of the unnecessarily complicated setup material had been streamlined, but even as it stands it has some good laughs.

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!

Am a big fan of Charlie Chaplin, have been for over a decade now. Many films and shorts of his are very good to masterpiece, and like many others consider him a comedy genius and one of film's most important and influential directors.

He did do better than 'The Knockout', still made very early on in his career where he was still finding his feet and not fully formed what he became famous for. Can understand why the Keystone period suffered from not being as best remembered or highly remembered than his later efforts, but they are mainly decent and important in their own right. 'The Knockout' is a long way from a career high, but has a lot of nice things about it and is to me one of the better efforts in the 1914 Keystone batch.

'The Knockout' is not as hilarious, charming or touching as his later work and some other shorts in the same period. The story is flimsy and the production values not as audacious. Occasionally, things feel a little scrappy and confused.

For someone who was still relatively new to the film industry and had literally just moved on from their stage background, 'The Knockout' is not bad at all.

While not audacious, the film hardly looks ugly, is more than competently directed and is appealingly played. Chaplin looks comfortable for so early on and shows his stage expertise while opening it up that it doesn't become stagy or repetitive shtick.

Although the humour, charm and emotion was done even better and became more refined later, 'The Knockout' is humorous, sweet and easy to like, though the emotion is not quite there. It moves quickly and doesn't feel too long or short.

Overall, far from one of Chaplin's best but pretty good and perhaps one of his better efforts from the early Keystone period. 7/10 Bethany Cox

The folks at Keystone might just as well have called this film "The Knockabout" for that's what they offer us: two reels of rowdy, fast-paced, and curiously amiable violence. Bricks are thrown, faces are punched, guns are fired, and cops are dragged across asphalt at high speed, but when the final scene arrives everyone looks okay, just a little winded. Viewers might feel a little winded, too, for despite its advanced age this movie amounts to something of a cinematic assault. MTV didn't invent rapid cutting, nor did Jackie Chan invent choreographic fighting; you'll find both in The Knockout, admittedly in rough and unsophisticated form, courtesy of Roscoe Arbuckle -- who, according to some sources, directed this film in addition to playing the lead.

The plot gets under way as we find two tattered hobos, looking for food. One of the tramps decides to impersonate the boxer Cyclone Flynn, who is scheduled to fight a bout that afternoon. Since the promoter hasn't met Flynn, he believes the tramp's false claim and gives him an advance on the proceeds. Meanwhile, Roscoe (called "Pug" here) defends his girlfriend from the unwanted attentions of a masher so successfully that he's persuaded to turn pro and take on Cyclone Flynn himself. After various complications Pug faces the real Flynn in the ring. The bout turns into a wild brawl and the police are summoned as Pug, now armed with two pistols, attempts to kill Flynn. Flynn ultimately escapes with his life across the rooftops and through an elegant party. Cops pursue Pug to a pier, and assorted personnel sail through the air into the ocean.

Decades after this film was made Roscoe Arbuckle retains his boyish charm as a screen comic. He gets quite a workout in this short. Gags as such are few, but there's a nice moment when Roscoe prepares to remove his trousers, becomes aware of the "viewers," and directs the camera's gaze upward, only undressing when he is safely out of camera range! (He would repeat this gag in his comedy Coney Island, three years later.) Minta Durfee, who was married to Arbuckle when this film was made, is a pleasant leading lady and looks fetching in the male drag she wears in the latter portion of the film, but, in my opinion, lacks the warmth Mabel Normand brought to similar roles. The rest of the supporting cast represents something of a Keystone Who's Who of 1914: Hank Mann as the tramp, Edgar Kennedy -- with hair -- as Cyclone Flynn, Al St. John as the masher, and Mack Swain (so memorable as the delusional prospector in Chaplin's The Gold Rush) as the gambler, mugging furiously as he watches the big fight. If you look quickly you can spot producer Mack Sennett in a brief bit, in the street in front of the arena. And of course, you can't miss Charlie Chaplin as the referee.

As Chaplin's popularity eclipsed Arbuckle's this film was re-released and advertised as a Chaplin vehicle, which is misleading, for Charlie is present for only a few minutes during the chaotic boxing match. Still, the sequence is the comic high point, as Arbuckle, Chaplin, Mack Swain, and Edgar Kennedy, all on screen simultaneously in a medium long shot, compete for the viewer's attention. But it's no contest: Chaplin's frantic attempts to avoid the boxers' punches draws our attention and steals the scene. Just to make sure our attention doesn't wander, Charlie vigorously mimes wooziness, falls, drags himself across the ring by the ropes, and pauses to count the stars he sees, whirling around his head. Arbuckle has to fire pistols to recapture the focus. If we view this sequence as a Battle of the Keystone Comics, it's plain that, a mere six months after his screen debut, and still only 25 years-old, Chaplin was now the undisputed Champion of screen comedians.

"The Knockout" (1914, Avery) "The Knockout" is more of a Fatty Arbuckle film than a Charlie Chaplin film as Charlie appears as an interfering boxing referee in a segment of the film. With a fair amount of action and a hilarious fight scene to start it off, and introduce us to Arbuckle's character Pug, this is a better than average 1914 film but still a bit tedious after the boxing match. Apparently, firing guns into the air and at people was cause for hilarity. Pug even runs around struggling to work double fisted with pistols and boxing gloves still on. One dis-jointed from reality marker in the shooting sequence is that everybody reacts to getting hit like someone just hit them with a paintball or a rubber bullet. The film's highlights inevitably involve Arbuckle's great physical comedy aided and abetted by his physique as well as Charlie who is great as the referee who keeps stumbling into the fighters during the first round and joins the match in the second round much to the delight of the audience (both on screen and off!). Drop-kicks, rock throwing, shooting, boxing…c'mon, what's missing? Not a bad effort and much better than some of the other Keystone 1914 films.