Mabel and Fatty Viewing the World's Fair at San Francisco

This is a wonderful time capsule of Mabel and Fatty at the height of their fame guiding us through the sights of the San Francisco World's Fair of 1915. See Fatty try to impress opera singer Mme. Ernestine Schumann-Heink with his "warbling". See him almost trip as he and Mabel are walking down some steps with Mayor James Rolph, Jr. See Mabel slap him for almost closing the Iron Maiden (which has spikes on the back of the door) on her! We also see a ship that brought some prisoners from England to Australia with heavy chains on them and a nighttime view of the fairgrounds including that of the 1915 building entrance. Definitely worth a look for documentary and silent movie buffs.

This short film is both a comedy and an educational film, and works very well both ways as Fatty Arbuckle and Mabel Normand take us on a tour of the 1915 exposition's biggest attractions. Frequent co-stars Arbuckle and Normand had great comic chemistry, and there are quite funny moments along the way: Fatty getting popped in the face by Mabel after nearly slamming the spiked Iron Maiden on her, and opera star Ernestine Schumann-Heink's horrified reaction when Fatty attempts to sing for her. The film is also priceless as nostalgia, giving us a unique look at an America long vanished, and at a San Francisco still rebuilding after the 1906 earthquake. The film concludes with stunning night-time shots.

While the title of this begins by mentioning Mabel Normand and Fatty Arbuckle, much of the film doesn't even feature them and they appear to be tacked onto a bunch of stock footage of the Panama-Pacific Exhibition (technically not a world's fair). As far as this footage without them goes, much of it is poorly framed (they couldn't get everything into the shot because the camera was too close) and much of it was bouncy as it was filmed from a rocking ship--and this isn't surprising for the port of San Francisco.

Overall, some might find this interesting since you get to see so much of the city that no longer exists. Unfortunately, this still didn't make it particularly interesting....especially since Mabel and Fatty essentially had nothing to do in this film.