Fatty chez lui

In cinema's infancy, most of the comedy involved gags. That's very much apparent in "The Rough House", starring and jointly directed by Fatty Arbuckle and Buster Keaton. The plot involves a get-together beset by one mishap after another (i.e., when Arbuckle's character accidentally starts a fire).

Keaton was only getting started in cinema, so Arbuckle is the star here. His physique certainly abets the comedy. I understand that not many of his movies survive due to his career having suffered after the death of an actress at a party that he was hosting. It's too bad, because he obviously had a lot of talent. Basically, this is the sort of movie that you can enjoy if you're willing to accept a bunch of silly stuff.

'The Rough House' that marks the directorial debut of Buster Keaton and is his second collaboration with Fatty Arbuckle, falls flat. The most amusing part is in the beginning of the movie where Arbuckle's character nonchalantly tries to put out a fire with cup of water. From there on the film goes downhill. Repetitive gags of someone getting hit int the face with stuff (I know it is slapstick and pie in the face was widely used gag, but this time they did it too much). Too random, too messy and too noisy (for silent film).

Rough House, The (1917)

*** (out of 4)

Fatty Arbuckle helps run a seaside resort but trouble starts when a deliver boy (Buster Keaton) shows up. It's rather amazing to see how much time the star/director Fatty gave to Keaton who's allowed to steal the show with his physical comedy. Another interesting thing is that there's a dinner scene where Fatty puts forks in two rolls and does a dance, which Chaplin borrowed eight years later in The Gold Rush.

Butcher Boy, The (1917)

** (out of 4)

The butcher boy (Fatty Arbuckle) falls for the store owner's daughter and must fight to get her. The first half of the film takes place in the store and has Buster Keaton playing an obnoxious customer. This half is very funny but the second half dealing with Fatty dressing in drag in order to sneak into a boarding school really doesn't work.

Haven't seen much of Arbuckle since I was a kid and, on the evidence of this effort, I haven't really missed much. I can't help wondering how famous Arbuckle's name would be today had his career not been destroyed by the Virginia Rappe affair. Probably as famous as Larry Semon, who was also big in the silent era but is now all but forgotten - and with good reason.

Arbuckle is outshone in every scene by his sidekick, Buster Keaton. This was only Keaton's second film but his technique is already far in advance of Fatty's. The story is non-existent, merely a prop on which to hang the relentless stream of pratfalls and sight gags. That's OK if the gags are funny and their execution spot on, but only Keaton is getting it right, so the laughs are few and far between. As others have pointed out already, its Fatty's lackadaisical attempts to put out a fire and his sausage-on-a-fork dance, which pre-empts Charlie the tramp's more famous version by a good seven years, that rise above the mediocre.

Watching The Rough House and other independent Arbuckle shorts, I am reminded of the sort of films I made with my friends when I was in junior high and high school. Weird, plot-less things where being funny and acting strange reigned over any sense of story or coherence. It's obvious watching these films that everyone involved in their making was having a great time, barely able to keep themselves from cracking up in the middle of a take.

However, The Rough House is not among Arbuckle's better efforts due to this meandering. Much of the short is a flurry of people hitting, kicking, shouting, and falling over. The best moments come in when the comedy comes from the characters, such as the lazy Arbuckle nonchalantly trying to put out the fire raging on his bed from a cigarette butt he dropped or the jealous cook played by Al St. John overreacting to the comely maid flirting with a delivery boy played by Buster Keaton in his second film appearance. Everything else is underwhelming, even random.