Dash it
all, I’m a day late on this. I knew the 100-year anniversary for The Bell Boy was the 18th,
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 18th, 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
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