The Hayseed (1919)

After handful of good-to-great Fatty Arbuckle shorts (I really enjoy the run from Out West to Back Stage,) this one is just all right.  It isn’t bad or anything, but it doesn’t measure up to the shorts that come before it.

Fatty and Buster work at a general store.  Fatty has it bad for a girl (Molly Malone,) but, as usual, there’s a rival for her affections, in this case the local sheriff played by John Coogan (father of Jackie – Coogan also appears in Back Stage and, with his lanky physicality, feels a bit like Fatty is test-driving a new Al St. John “type.”)  Schemes, hijinks, romance; the usual.

There are some good bits to be had here.  I like the sight gag of Fatty throwing letters directly into mailbox slots, and I love his inventive way of surreptitiously ascertaining Molly’s ring size (it involves a piece of cheese and a pickle – no, really.)  There’s also a funny bit with a sad song and a plateful of onions.  Oh, and the local dance is a lot of fun.  One woman serves as a universal dance partner/rag doll and gets spun wildly all over the dance floor, which includes getting flung several times like a projectile at Buster.

In general, though… I dunno.  It just feels a bit lacking.  It comes across as disinterested, like it was made more by rote than because anyone was really into it.  Fatty and Buster only made one more short together after this before they both moved on, Fatty to features and Buster to his own independent shorts, so maybe their feet were a bit itchy when they made this.  Whatever the reason, I know they’re both capable of much better, separately and together.

As for Buster, he feels less present than he does in a lot of the shorts made shortly before this one, which is maybe part of the reason it doesn’t work as well for me (let’s be honest – of course it’s part of the reason.)  He doesn’t have as many scenes with Fatty, and when he does, he feels more like a sidekick than a comic partner.  Since the latter is how I prefer my Arbuckle-Keaton dynamic, the interplay between them here contributes to the feeling that the short is kind of regressive, like it doesn’t take advantage of the comedic rapport they’ve built up by this time.

Of course, that’s not to suggest that Buster isn’t funny.  It’s Buster, so you know he’s gonna bring it.  The aforementioned scene at the dance is a hoot, and there’s an amusing scene of Buster (very) awkwardly helping Fatty take his measurements for a suit.  Most of Buster’s humorous scenes, though, are off on his own, little bits of business just thrown in for fun.  He has a goofy cartoon gag oiling the joints of his horse, he does some nice Bustery clowning-around with a broom, and we get a glimpse of him giving a delightful, if slightly inept magic show.

Warnings

Slapstick violence.