June 25th,
1917 – the day The Rough House was
released. In my estimation, one of the
lesser of the Fatty Arbuckle shorts, and not just because Buster’s role is
comparatively minor. There’s more
reliance on easy violence than well-crafted humor, which is a shame because
there really are some gems in here; you just have to sit through a lot of rough
‘n’ tumble scrapping to get to them.
(Today’s Sunday Who Review is getting bumped until tomorrow.)
Putting Out the Fire
This is a
wonderfully-built sequence, with Fatty accidentally setting his bed on fire and
then trotting patiently between the bedroom and the kitchen in his attempts to
put it out, one teacupful at a time. The
comedy comes from a nice blend of repetition and mixing it up, and Fatty’s
nonchalance throughout is really funny.
Dancing Rolls
I can’t
say if Fatty invented this gag, but since The
Rough House came out eight years before The
Gold Rush, we can say with certainty that Chaplin did not. While this bit is here mostly because of the
more famous riffs on it that came afterwards (in addition to The Gold Rush, Benny & Joon also has a dancing-rolls scene,) it’s fun in its
own right as well.
Fatty the Chef
Some
really clever gags sprinkled in here.
The crowning achievement, naturally, is the camera trickery that allows
Fatty to open the tablecloth and “magically” unfold a complete table service
with it, but I also get a kick out of Fatty using an electric fan to “slice”
potatoes and serving soup with a sponge, wringing out the guests’ servings into
their bowls.
Making an Enemy
My favorite
Buster moment in this short. I’ve said
it before, and I’ll say it again:
Buster, apropos of basically nothing, scissor-kicks a dude in the face!
This is a trick he must have picked up from his dad, who was also quite
adept at face-kicking, but Buster gets bonus points for being shorter. This moment kills me every time I see it.
Caught on the Fence
Here’s my
other good Buster bit. Buster and two
other cops are running around, which Buster already makes even cooler for doing
flips when he could just do falls, and after scaling a fence, Buster gets
snagged and can’t get down. It’s a very
typical sort of gag, nothing you
haven’t seen before, but Buster does it so well; that’s the best
running-in-midair since Wile E. Coyote, and he
was cartoon!
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