The Rounders

The Rounders (1914)

*** (out of 4)

Charlie Chaplin and Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle show up separately at their homes where they take a beating from their wives. The two eventually bump into one another in more way than one and decide to go out together but of course the nagging wives follow. THE ROUNDERS is far from a classic movie and the truth is that's it's barely even a good one. With that said, it's impossible not to at least enjoy seeing the two comic legends working together and both of them delivering nice performances. As far as the comedy goes, it's very hit and miss because the majority of the times we're just getting the same gags over and over. The two drunks stumble around, knock things over and they each get hit a lot. This pretty much happens throughout the entire running time and their drunk level seems to change from one scene to the next. I still thought Chaplin and Arbuckle had some fine chemistry working together and this is show during the scenes where the two are trying to hold each other up and walk at the same time. This is certainly far from their best work but it's still worth watching.

Charlie Chaplin and Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle play two drunken gentlemen. They are neighbors and they return to disapproving wives.

It's a 16 minute short with two famous silent era stars. The concept is simple. It's easy fun. It's very basic. It may be better to get even more basic by staying in the hotel rooms. I would have liked the guys passing out in the hallway and the wives walk out on them.

This short had Charlie Chaplin clad in an atypical tophat and cape though his antics were still the same. He played the drunken Mr. Full who came home to a very unhappy wife (Phyllis Allen). Across the hall another drunkard, Mr. Fuller (Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle), came home to an equally unhappy wife (Minta Durfee). There was domestic violence abound (in slapstick fashion) as the two men faced their fates in the form of angry wives.

Chaplin is funniest to me as a sober tramp. I prefer his clumsy antics not be the result of imbibing. And if this short wasn't bad enough they threw in there a character in blackface for good measure.

Chas. Chapman and the Fat Boy appear in this as a couple of genial jags. The humor is not of an offensive sort, though few performers can avoid this in such scenes. The angry wives follow them and they take to a boat in the lake, which is swamped in an amusing manner. - The Moving Picture World, September 19, 1914

There is certainly a group of people that would bill the 1914 short film The Rounders as comedic gold, but to me, it seems more like two great, even legendary, comedic actors slumming or going through the motions. The Rounders, to Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle and Charlie Chaplin, seems nothing more than a warmup for larger, more thoughtful shorts and full-length features. It's perfectly safe and innocence, as nearly all comic shorts were during this time period, but for two large names comes a great deal of expectations that The Rounders barely fulfills.

We watch Arbuckle and Chaplin stumble around town drunk, fighting with their girlfriends and eventually being chased out of town by other townspeople following Arbuckle attempting to strangle his wife after she hits him. That element alone is a bit extreme, especially for a film of this era, and Arbuckle and Chaplin simply do not funnel the same kind of energy into the story or the gags to back something like that up.

The Rounders winds up having an entertaining final minutes because things finally pick up and become pleasantly manic. However, at the same time, sitting and watching Arbuckle and Chaplin stumble their way through town isn't so funny when one recalls what these actors have done and would go on to do later in their careers. For them, this was an impromptu warmup exercise on the set of a film in comparison to their other works.

Starring: Charlie Chaplin and Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle. Directed by: Charlie Chaplin.