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
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