Coney Island

New York City's beach-side Coney Island amusement park is the setting. Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle plays in the sand with inattentive wife Agnes Neilson. Fatty leaves her and goes to enjoy the rides and attractions at Luna. Fatty's friendly rivals Buster Keaton and Al St. John are there, causing laughter. The three men vie for the attentions of pretty Alice Mann. Fatty's yen for women's clothing increases the merriment and a few Keystone Kops later join in the fun. The cast is in good form, with the men famously physical. Keaton's stunts are the most daring. He also cries and laughs herein, well before his character's non-emotional "stone face" was cemented. This two-reel short seems cobbled, but is recommended more for its cast, setting and physical comedy.

****** Coney Island (10/29.1917) Roscoe Arbuckle ~ Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle, Buster Keaton, Al St. John, Agnes Neilson

Coney Island (1917)

**** (out of 4)

Fatty Arbuckle travels to Coney Island where he competes with Buster Keaton for the heart of a girl, which leads to havoc. This is a wonderfully funny short that allowed Keaton to show off his grace as a physical comedian. The ice cream, fish fighting and waterslide gags are certainly the best. The laughs fizzle out towards the end but this is still hilarious.

You can view this short on The Forgotten Films of Fatty Arbuckle set, which features four discs worth of shorts as well as some nice extras. Remastered prints and new scores make this collection of films a must have.

...because I actually think this is one of better-plotted Arbuckle/Keaton/St. John comedies. The three main characters remain consistent throughout--Amoral Fatty, Hot-Tempered Al, and Put-Upon-but-Resilient Buster--and their story lines are nicely interwoven. Good use is made of Luna Park, and Newton's law ("every action has an equal and opposite reaction") is thoroughly tested. The two women, Agnes Neilson and Alice Mann, are both skilled actresses, in the Vaudevillian manner, and have a few nice little comic bits of their own. (Also, love that striped bathing suit!) Some of the Keystone Kop ("Comique Cop"?) business got a little tiresome for me, but whatever...I've still watched this picture about 5 times, and will watch it more once I actually buy the DVD.

Another symptom of my oncoming mental illness is that, after seeing a pile of these Comique things, I'm starting to think Al St. John is kind of cute. I guess he's an acquired taste, like beer, or arsenic, but you can't deny his slapstick ability. Watch the terrific head-spin he makes after Fatty pushes him into Buster at the bell-ringing stand. And I love the way he looks just like a terrier when he makes his "angry" face.

Part of the fun of watching these shows is not so much to laugh at the falls and fighting--I'm not sure they would have been considered so hilarious even in their own day. But to know that these are all real stunts, that the actors really could jump and tumble like that, is awe-inspiring. It's like watching Jackie Chan's stunts. And the Comique boys didn't have the help of CG tricks, and probably could only do a limited number of takes.

The Alloy Orchestra's soundtrack for the Kino DVD is problematic for a lot of people, but boy, that's a rollicking Luna Park theme. Just try to resist dancing or at least bouncing to it.

When you watch several Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle's movies in a row then you can notice that he was quite one note comedian, unlike his much more famous colleagues Charles Chaplin or Buster Keaton. In 'Coney Island' Fatty doesn't fight for the love of a woman, in this one he tries to evade his wife to spend the fun day at the luna park. Still, he meets gorgeous girl to whom he falls in love and again he has to fight off competition. At least 'Coney Island' doesn't include too much food fights, only couple of ice creams get thrown around, but Fatty still dresses up as a woman. This time he does it for the access into the bathing house.

Good enough to pass 25 minutes to get couple of laughs (mostly from Buster, though).

This was a mostly funny film of seeing Roscoe Arbuckle, Buster Keaton, and Al St. John, all of whom are competing for the same girl, hit and getting hit by various objects at Coney Island. I say mostly, because by the end, the short was almost running out of steam especially with Arbuckle's battle-ax of a wife continuing to appear. Arbuckle also dresses as a woman-having stolen another plus-size bathing suit from a female stranger because there wasn't a male suit for him-to hilarious effect especially when St. John flirts with him! The cop chase wasn't as funny but by that time I didn't care. So if you love knockabout silent slapstick comedy, I highly recommend Coney Island.