Back Stage

Buster Keaton had appeared in a number of Roscoe Arbuckle films before he volunteered for the United States Army in the summer of 1918 during the Great War. He was shipped over to France shortly before the war ended in November 1918. Because of his acting talent, the Army decided to have him entertain the remaining troops in Europe before he was discharged in April 1919. Keaton immediately returned to Los Angeles to pick up where he had left off with Arbuckle, appearing in three films with the comedian, the first being September 1919's "Back Stage."

Arbuckle and Keaton are stage hands getting ready for the upcoming show's star performer, a strongman who turns out to be very abusive toward his female assistant. Well before the 'Me-Two' Movement, the pair take it upon themselves to set the larger man straight. Because no one treated him like that before, he refuses to go on the stage. So Arbuckle and company decide to improvise the entertainment, much to the delight of the sell-out crowd. Trouble is, Mr. Muscleman doesn't appreciate their act.

A notable sequence shows one of the stage set's large false wall designed as a side of a house collapsing onto Arbuckle, who is standing underneath it. Thankfully, an open window frame on the second floor falls directly on top of him, allowing Fatty to escape without a scratch. Keaton remembered that trick and used it twice in his movies when he went solo, most famously in 1928's 'Steamboat Bill, Jr.'

This is my favorite of all the Buster and Roscoe shorts, and that's a difficult statement to make--because they're all great! I think the capper for me was the "ballet" with Buster and Roscoe, with Buster in drag. Roscoe was so wonderfully graceful for such a large fellow, and Buster makes a terrific ballerina in slap shoes. It makes you wish they could have worked together forever!

Egos collide in the wings of a weekly variety show, leading the talent to walk out en-masse and two stagehands (Fatty Arbuckle and Buster Keaton) to perform in their stead. Both comedians owe their careers to the live circuit, where they learnt the ropes with a traveling vaudeville act or two, and that gives the behind-curtains stuff a sense of validity. These guys know which corners to prod, which props to rig for spectacular failure, where and how to poke the pompous stars to push them over the edge.

On-stage, too, they exploit every last opportunity for misadventure, from heckling audience members to collapsing scenery (including an early example of Keaton's famed "falling edifice" gag, best-known from 1928's Steamboat Bill Jr.), with the usual amount of reckless tumbles and messy melees thrown in for good measure. More balanced than some of the duo's earlier pictures, with a number of fresh new bits, but it's missing a certain spark. Maybe their rigorous filming schedule (a dozen comedies together in the preceding two years) was beginning to take a toll.

Perhaps nothing reveals the edge in Roscoe Arbuckle's comedy more than when Buster Keaton's character is tipping over backwards, and rather than catching him, Arbuckle first dusts off the floor with a broom, and then whacks the back of his legs, causing Buster to fall hard. Another such moment is when he and Buster rig up a barbell to try to electrocute a menacing strongman (Charles A. Post). This was after Keaton had tried to incapacitate the man by hitting him with an axe a few different ways.

The darkness in the comedy is ironic, because by bosom buddy Buster Keaton's account, in real life "Arbuckle was that rarity, a true jolly fat man. He had no meanness, malice, or jealousy in him. Everything seemed to amuse and delight him. He was free with his advice and too free in spending and lending money. I could not have found a better-natured man to teach me the movie business, or a more knowledgeable one. We never had an argument."

Fresh off being away for nearly a year in the army, Keaton stayed loyal to Arbuckle despite offers for significantly more money elsewhere. Change was in the wind for Arbuckle, however, as he had changed studios and lost many of the other people in his ensemble, including Alice Lake and (very soon) even nephew Al St. John, who barely appears here. Arbuckle was ill during production, delaying it, and perhaps all of these things led to a rather average film. This was a year before he would sign a mega-contract with Paramount, and two years before the Virginia Rappe scandal would unfairly ruin him.

There are some of the old Arbuckle standbys, including him and Keaton dressing up in drag and dancing, not much of which is very inspired. The limber (and likely coded gay) dancer John Coogan (Jackie's father) does the splits and various maneuvers both Arbuckle and Keaton try to follow, which was amusing. One of the funnier bits was an early version of a sign changing message when a portion of it is concealed, when a posting goes from "Gertrude McSkinny famous star who will play the little laundress first time here tomorrow at 2 pm" to the decidedly more ribald "Miss Skinny will undress here at 2pm."

The best, however, was the bit with the wall of a stage set falling down and just missing Arbuckle, who happens to be standing where one of the window cutouts is. Keaton of course would use this to much more dramatic effect in Steamboat Bill, Jr nine years later, and it was pretty cool to see this early version. Between this and the early version of Chaplin's bread roll dance in The Rough House (1917), you can really see the influence Arbuckle had on these giants of comedy, and his own place alongside them.

This is one of the very best of the Arbuckle/Keaton short features, and there are a lot of good reasons to watch it. Most of the comedy material works very well, and it has some very creative gag ideas, along with some excellent stunt work added in.

The setting, with Fatty and Buster working "Back Stage" for a vaudeville show, lends itself well to humor and variety, and this setting is quite interesting in its own right. If you watch closely, you'll also notice a number of gags used here that Keaton later refined and used to even greater effect later in some of his own short features.

There are several good sequences, and they provide a good showcase for both Arbuckle and Keaton to display their considerable array of comic talents. Al St. John and the rest of the supporting cast also get a couple of good moments. It's great comedy, and a lot of fun to watch.