The Bell Boy (1918)

This is probably my favorite of the Fatty Arbuckle shorts.  Lots of laughs, superb comic chemistry, and one of my favorite Buster action bits of all time.  The story’s barely there, but everything else is firing on every cylinder.

Fatty and Buster are bellboys at the Elk’s Head Hotel (“third-class service, first-class prices.”)  They by turns perform, avoid, and fake their work, trying to stay one step ahead of the desk clerk (Al St. John) and causing havoc among the guests.  A lovely manicurist (Alice Lake) books a room, and while Fatty, Buster, and Al all fall for her, it’s naturally Fatty who falls hardest.

Where to begin?  Such fun and creative gags.  Everything involving the horse-powered elevator (yeah – you heard me) is hilarious, and I love seeing the first recorded example of Buster’s classic glass-cleaning bit – so simple, but done so well.  I also like the interlude of Fatty, doing double duty as the hotel barber, remaking a particularly hirsute guest into Ulysses S. Grant, Abraham Lincoln, and Kaiser Wilhelm in turn (the last impression prompts him to start pummeling the guest with shaving cream.)  In 1918, Kaiser Wilhelm is obviously a timely reference – in another gag, a sign in the dining room reads “French and German cooking,” and it won’t be too long after this that Buster is drafted and the Arbuckle-Keaton partnership is temporarily put on hold – but it strikes me that older moviegoers at the time would probably have actually remembered the Lincoln and Grant presidencies as well, as opposed to just being figures from the history books.  Oh yeah, and there’s a brief appearance by Joe Keaton as one of the hotel guests, kicking Buster’s butt (naturally!)

There’s one bit that really threw me the first time I saw it.  The hirsute guest mentioned above initially freaks Fatty and Buster out, bearing a certain resemblance to the devil, but they both calm down when he breaks into flamboyant mannerisms – Fatty actually nudges Buster and flaps his arms, a presumed stand-in for the word “fairy.”  Stuff in pre-Code-era cinema can really catch me offguard sometimes, and I wasn’t expecting that at all.  On the plus side, neither Fatty nor Buster seem hostile toward the guest, but they definitely make fun of them.

This is the first of the Fatty Arbuckle shorts where Fatty and Buster seem like a proper comedy duo, a la Abbott & Costello, Fry & Laurie, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern, etc.  In previous films, Buster’s been a bit player, a romantic rival, or just not quite simpatico with Fatty (Out West is close, but since Buster is technically Fatty’s boss there, the dynamic is different.)  Here, they’re two working stiffs clowning around together, and although Buster makes eyes as Alice too, he doesn’t try to “steal” her once she starts leaning toward Fatty.  They play so well off each other.

And Buster himself is terrific.  As usual, he’s great with little touches, like kicking the mop upright, and he has a few really standout sequences.  The whole elevator thing is lots of fun, as is his scene with Joe, and I’ve raved before about how amazing his parkour-esque moves are in the scene with the bank robbers – absolutely incredible.

Warnings

Slapstick violence and a few unexpected gay jokes.