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.