"Better a fallen rocket than never a burst of light."
~ Tom Stoppard, The Invention of Love

Tuesday, June 14, 2016

Back Stage (1919)

Here’s a fun one.  My guess is that, creatively, it’s probably heavy on Buster’s influence.  Outside of the climax, it has a greater emphasis on tumbling than fighting, there are a number of Busterish mechanical gags, and it seems strongly influenced by Buster’s vaudeville origins.  Plus, it includes the earliest iteration of the falling-house gag that Buster ultimately perfected in Steamboat Bill Jr., and there’s not a whole lot that gets much more Buster than that moment!

Fatty and Buster (and Al St. John, but his part is pretty minor) are stage hands at a vaudeville house.  When they get into it with the strongman over his shabby treatment of his long-suffering assistant (Molly Malone, who plays the girl in the remaining Arbuckle-Keaton shorts,) the strongman convinces all the performers to quit.  Naturally, it then falls to Fatty and Buster to come up with their own show, which goes about as smoothly as you’d expect.

Tons of fun gags here.  I get a kick out of the running joke of the strongman’s super-strong assistant, I love that the playhouse only has one star that they hang over different dressing rooms to pacify all their performers’ egos, and there are some nice, amusing tangents that are just there for extra flavor.  Unsurprisingly, the short’s crowning achievement is the show put on by Fatty and Buster.  There’s a lot of theatrical humor in Buster’s work, but I think this might be the funniest onstage disaster in one of his films – even though I’d easily say The Playhouse is a stronger short, much of its comedy is found backstage between various acts, whereas everything Fatty and Buster get up to during their show is hilarious from end to end.  It has everything:  over-the-top acting, technical mishaps, Buster launching himself into a heckler’s box seat, and more.

Given the Bustery-ness of the proceedings, it’s a given that Buster is terrific here.  In general, he’s just such a great right-hand-man for Fatty, shining without overshadowing (and that’s coming from someone who watched these shorts specifically to see Buster.)  His attempts to help with the strongman situation are fantastic, and I don’t know if anyone has ever been pinned more humorously underneath a barbell.  I also love his contributions in the big climax, once again showing off his astounding athleticism and proving that he’s definitely someone you want on your side in a fight!

But let’s get to the really important part:  Buster in the show.  Before seeing these shorts, my most cursory peek into Fatty and Buster’s professional history together enthusiastically informed me of Buster performing in a long wig, an ancient-civilization-style dress, and slap shoes, and to be sure, Buster is a riot playing the queen.  He’s somehow scrupulously feminine and dismissively masculine at the same time, which make for a fun combination, and I’ve raved before about his stupendous no-handed cartwheels.  But that’s not even his only highlight here!  He also does a bang-up job in his and Fatty’s second skit; I think his “acting” when Fatty tells him he’s supposed to be shivering might be the biggest laugh of the short for me.  Really, it’s just wall-to-wall Buster goodness, and you can’t argue with that.

Warnings

Slapstick violence and some don’t-try-this-at-home with both barbells and electricity.

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