Top Five Gags: The Rough House

June 25^th, 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!