Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle Movies

In Charlie Chaplin's fifth Keystone comedy we get a look inside the famous laugh factory. Charlie is a movie fan and we first see him creating havoc at a theatre where he gets too involved with the action on the screen and the beautiful actress in the film. Ejected from the theatre, he proceeds to Keystone itself where he mooches money from Roscoe Arbuckle as he arrives at work. Charlie sneaks into the studio and disrupts the filming, much to the chagrin of the director. He mistakes a scene where the starlet is being manhandled for reality and comes to her rescue. Firing a prop pistol in all directions, he clears the stages before leaving. Meanwhile, a Keystone scout sees a building on fire in a nearby street and telephones the studio. In a parody of Mack Sennett's propensity to use public events and disasters as backdrops for his films, the cast and crew rush off to do some location filming at the fire. Charlie shows up and again disrupts the filming, causing the director to take after him brandishing a club. The firemen arrive and seeing the struggle between the director and his assistants who are trying to restrain him, turn the hoses on the fighting men. Charlie again tries his luck with the beautiful actress and receives a good shaking in response, followed by a soaking by the fire squad. In a classic Chaplin move, he twists his ear as water squirts from his mouth. When the beautiful actress laughs at his condition, a water-logged Charlie gives up on his movie fanaticism. ~ Phil Posner, All Movie Guide

In Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle's second independent two-reeler, Fatty goes to the park and flirts with another man's girl (Alice Lake). As a result, he gets a sound thrashing. To explain his injuries when he gets home to his family, he spins a wild tale about how he came to the defense of a little blind woman. The truth comes out a few nights later when he and his folks go to a cinema, and they see that Fatty's escapade in the park has been filmed for posterity. The object of his flirtation is there with her boyfriend, and all mayhem breaks loose. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

This two reeler is basically an excuse for Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle to make a mockery of various vaudeville turns and back stage attitudes and antics. It's territory he knew well, since he spent the early years of his career traveling from one small theater to another. The main interest here is that Buster Keaton, who co-starred, stole a couple of gags for later films that he made on his own. The opening shot, in which what appears to be a room is only a set, is strikingly similar to a scene in 1921's The Playhouse. A later gag, where a piece of scenery falls onto Arbuckle, framing him in its second-story window, is repeated on a much, much grander scale in Keaton's 1928 feature Steamboat Bill, Jr. On the other hand, Arbuckle borrowed from Keaton, too -- at one point during the stage show, he throws Keaton at a heckler. Keaton spent his childhood performing on stage with his mother and father, and his father, Joe, was known to use his young son in the same manner for the same reason. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

This two-reeler by Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle involves a man (Arbuckle) who escapes from his battle-axe wife Agnes Neilson by disappearing into Coney Island. There, he encounters Al St. John and the two of them vie for the girlfriend (Alice Mann) of Buster Keaton. This scrambled plot is merely an excuse for a vast array of timeless gags. It's entertaining enough to watch these three clowns turn the amusement park upside down, but what's really notable about Coney Island is Keaton's performance. His face hasn't yet frozen into its familiar deadpan, and he mugs throughout the film almost as much as Al St. John! ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

One of the best of the Keystone comedies, the three-reel Fatty and Mabel Adrift is an excellent film by any standards, as well as incarnate proof that Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle was among the most talented comedy directors in the business. The film opens with a series of amusing tableux, as hero Arbuckle and heroine Mabel Normand, their faces framed by cut-out heart silhouettes, are romantically spliced by a capricious Cupid -- much to the dismay of Mabel's erstwhile suitor Al St. John, whose own heart silhouette symbolically crumbles to dust. After their marriage, Fatty and Mabel purchase a prefabricated house, situated near the California seaside. Though the bride's first meal is a disaster (her biscuits are as hard as granite), she and her new hubby are blissfully happy in their cottage by the sea. But St. John intends to scuttle their union, and to do this he hires a bunch of hooligans to detach the house from its foundations and send the structure drifting off to sea. Upon awakening, Fatty and Mabel discover that their dream house has become a nightmare: the living room is flooded, and the entire domicile threatens to sink beneath the waves at any moment. Desperately, the newlyweds dispatch their faithful dog Teddy to summon help from the shore patrol, leading to a typical but uproarious Keystone chase finish. For all its slapstick, Fatty and Mabel Adrift contains moments of genuine charm, notably the famous vignette wherein Arbuckle's shadow seems to gently caress the cheek of the sleeping Mabel. The film was presented virtually in its entirety in Robert Youngson's 1960 compilation feature When Comedy Was King. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide