Top Five Gags: Out West

January 20^th, 1918 – the day Out West was released.  Hard to enjoy as fully as I’d like to, as there are a couple disappointing scenes of pretty racist humor, but apart from those, it’s a solid western spoof.  This is the first real Fatty-Buster team-up, cementing their place as a comedy duo in the Arbuckle-Keaton shorts.

Fatty on the Run

Having stolen his dinner from a trio of passengers, Fatty sidesteps their attempts to chase him by jumping off the train.  He then coolly rolls and lights a cigarette, jumps back on at the caboose, and calmly detaches it, all the while his pursuers are still running across the tops of the other cars.  Pretty slick move by Fatty – I especially like the funny little cocktail-shaker move he does to magically roll his cigarette.

Cure-All Liquor

Buster, proprietor of the local saloon, has his own all-purpose “firewater.”  In addition to drinking his liquor, he also uses it to flush out his eyes (shudder) and later cleans his gun with it.

The Card Cheat

Fantastic demonstration of Buster the unflappable saloon owner.  When a card player shoots a cheater, Buster glances at their respective hands and tells the shooter, “You would’ve lost anyway.”  Then, he casually rolls the body into a trap door, drops in the flower from his lapel while doffing his hat, and just as neatly shuts the trap door with his foot.  His easy collectiveness just kills me.

Hands Up

A few nice sight gags when the outlaws hold up the saloon, like the guy who sidles up behind Buster to drink the shot he’s still holding in his upraised hand.  My favorite, though, is the hands on the clock moving to 10 and 2, also “hands up” – ha!

Horse Barfly

Okay, so I don’t know why Fatty empties around three liquor bottles into a horse’s water bucket (he’s just kind of puckish that way,) but the results are pretty great.  After putting its hoof up on the bar’s foot rail, the horse staggers out in the most spectacular way.  Buster’s career features all kinds of great horse gags, but this might have been the most talented individual horse who ever appeared in the same film as him.  Sorry, fashion-conscious horse from The Blacksmith!

Out West (1918)

 

I really like this one, a fun slapstick western with some terrific gags.  It has its definite imperfections, but overall, it’s one of my favorites of the Fatty Arbuckle shorts.

Fatty, a drifter, rides the rails into a rough ‘n’ tumble town in the Wild West.  He gets a job at the local saloon, run by Buster, and the booze-slinging makes it a bit awkward when he falls in love with a temperance advocate (Alice Lake.)  However, ideological difference don’t matter much when outlaw Al St. John moseys in.  He runs off with Alice, and it’s up to Fatty and Buster to save her.

Just great fun.  The plot is pretty slapdash, particularly in the last act, but the comedy keeps the short moving along well.  Things get off to an excellent start with a series of fine train gags.  (Now, I don’t want to go straight to the “I bet Buster made up this gag” well every time I come across something especially funny in a Fatty Arbuckle short, but come on – intricate circular gags on a train just scream Buster.  I would need pretty empirical evidence before I could entertain the possibility that anyone else came up with that sequence.)  There’s also lots of laughs involving a trap door, and a drunk horse whose performance has to be seen to be believed.  Seriously, not even the fashionista horse from The Blacksmith is as good as this one.

On the not-so-good side, I’m perplexed at the film’s apparent understanding of dangerous weapons.  Whereas people are merely threatened by guns and knives in The Rough House, multiple characters – Fatty included – get shot by both bullets and arrows in this short, to little ill effect.  I get the sense that the general rule is thought to be, “If you’re shot in the butt, it doesn’t count.”  I know these shorts are big on cartoon gags, but that’s just silly.  More unfortunate are the unpleasant moments of racial humor.  There’s a short sequence where Fatty is being pursued by Native Americans who evidently want to eat(!) him, and Alice Lake’s character is introduced rescuing a Black man that the saloon folk are repeatedly shooting at to amuse themselves.  The setup itself is of course horrible, and it’s an additional dose of unsettling to see him falling at the feet of his White Savior, big glycerine tears of gratitude streaming down his face.  Not cool.

But then there’s Buster.  Pretty much the fully-established Stone Face we know and love, running a Wild West saloon with the panache that only Buster can pull off.  So many great gags around his character.  I like that he uses his liquor as a cure-all, he deploys that trap door like nobody’s business, and he clings to a light fixture.  It’s great to see him slightly concerned but basically unruffled in the face of obvious danger.  I don’t even know how this worked with the deadpan, but nobody gave reaction shots like Buster.  He’s stoic, clever, athletic, and makes no bones about confronting people much bigger than he is – what more could you want?

Warnings

Slapstick violence (including gunplay,) drinking, and some distasteful racial humor.