Top Five Gags: Moonshine

May 12^th, 1918 – the day Moonshine was released.  This is sort of the odd one out of the Arbuckle-Keaton shorts, since only a fraction of it exists in high quality (with intertitles filling in description of the missing scenes.)  The entire short does survive, but on washed-out-looking film that obscures the action.  Still, even if I can’t see it as well as I’d like, I can see it well enough to pick out my favorite gags.

The Secret Hideout

A camouflaged bootleggers’ hideout whose door swings open by depressing a certain stone with your foot is a rather Buster-esque image, but it’s not just the visual that interests me here.  This is where we can our first look at Moonshine’s self-referential humor, with the intertitles assuring us that the door-opening trick was “all the director’s idea.”

The Revenuers Arrive

While Fatty and Buster are the only revenue agents we actually care about, they are in fact the leaders of a small army of revenuers.  It’s Buster who ushers in their arrival, via a classic clown-car-style delivery (when did clown cars come into vogue?  Is this gag typical for the humor of its time, or is it more adventurous?)  What makes it fun is Buster’s stoic expression as he calmly waits for the dozens of agents to file out of the car.

Washing Up Buster

Having gotten dirty after tumbling halfway down a mountain (as you do,) Buster is picked up by Fatty, washed in a nearby river (I like Fatty’s motions here, which make it look like he’s working Buster’s backside across a washboard,) and quite literally hung up to dry.  Upside-down.  From a tree.  By his shoes.  Ha!

Lost Extras

More meta humor.  In the intertitle dialogue, Fatty asks Buster what happened to all the extras.  When Buster admits that they’re at lunch, Fatty decides that they can do the big explosion scene by themselves.  While these fourth-wall-breaking scenes aren’t riotously funny or anything, they do stand out in this short just because it isn’t something that comes up much in any other Arbuckle-Keaton short, and it’s interesting that Moonshine leans into it so strongly.

The Big Explosion

And here’s the explosion Fatty promised in the previous scene.  Again, the intertitles get meta, with Fatty praising himself in the intertitles for the excellent shot of the cabin blowing up and then coming back together (i.e., reversing the camera footage.)