Top Five Gags: The Bell Boy

Dash it all, I’m a day late on this.  I knew the 100-year anniversary for The Bell Boy was the 18^th, but for whatever reason, I thought that was today.  Accept my apologies with this Top Five Gags on what probably remains my favorite Arbuckle-Keaton short; I know there are a lot of good ones, but I just love this one so much.  Anyway, March 18^th, 1918 – the day The Bell Boy was released (spoilers.)

Spin and Span

Fatty and Buster are spring cleaning at the motel.  Fatty gets definite credit for his impressive skill at mopping a floor while he’s sitting on it (I feel like it would’ve taken less effort to just stand up!), and pictured here is Buster’s classic sight gag – while trying to clean a stubborn spot in the “glass,” he sticks his head through it to get at it from the other side.

Fatty the Barber

More fun with sight gags.  Fatty, shaving a tremendously-bearded patron, variously styles his customer after Ulysses S. Grant, Abraham Lincoln, and Kaiser Wilhelm (pelting him in the face with shaving cream after the latter!)  I’m all for good beard lookalike gags, and this is a great little sequence.

The Elevator Breaks Down

One of this short’s most impeccable achievements (of which there are several.)  At this point, we’ve already seen that the motel’s elevator is operated by a horse that Al St. John urges forward or backward whenever the bell boys give the signal.  This time, though, the horse doesn’t feel like moving, and Buster gets stuck between floors with several patrons.  Al’s efforts to make the horse move involve lighting a literal fire under his ass, Buster (in particular, his head) then gets even more stuck, and Fatty has to use a 2x4 to try and pry him out!  Pitch perfect from start to finish.

Buster Goes Flying

Even better, it leads straight into this equally-hilarious sequence.  With the 2x4 now wedged firmly beneath the elevator and Buster temporarily stuck on a mounted elk’s head (what – that doesn’t happen to you?), he falls onto the wooden board and then is caught bouncing teeter-totter-style in the taut beam.  To get him off, Al tries to saw the 2x4 in half while Buster is still bouncing on it – just too awesome.

Preparing for the Bank Job

Fatty convinces Buster and Al to help him get in good with his girl by faking a bank robbery (so Fatty can sweep in and save the day, obviously.)  I’ve written before about Buster’s amazing physical routine during the robbery itself, but this brief bit of him and Al getting ready for it is just a stitch.  After a perfectly-synchronized leap behind the front desk, Buster and Al emerge a second later wearing cliché robbers’ masks and then immediately start pulling all their “burgling equipment” (ranging from sledgehammers to shovels) out from behind the desk.

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.