Month: December 2021

Categories
This Film Is More Than 100 Years Old

Oh, Doctor! (1917)

Oh, Doctor! is another Fatty Arbuckle/Buster Keaton collaboration. This time Fatty Arbuckle plays a reckless, feckless doctor caught up in a complex (or at least convoluted) plot involving gambling, hustling, theft, and seduction, while Buster Keaton plays his dandyish son.

I can’t really think of much to say about this, I’m afraid. It was amiable enough, and at least it tried something different, rather than relying on Fatty Arbuckle’s usual staple of filling up any spare five minutes with everlasting food fights.

Also I liked this joke quite a lot, though I’m not sure exactly why.

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Notes

1. I watched this on blu-ray again. I captured the stills from this slightly grubby version on youtube.

2. This was a marked improvement on yesterday’s viewing, though it still lacked any stand-out scenes

3. I’m missing Luke the Dog quite a lot right now.

4. Hopefully he turns up again soon.

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Film Information

Title: Oh, Doctor!
Director: Fatty Arbuckle
Year: 1917
Duration: 24 minutes
Watch: youtube

Categories
This Film Is More Than 100 Years Old

His Wedding Night (1917)

His Wedding Night is the third Fatty Arbuckle/Buster Keaton collaboration of 1917, and by far the worst so far. This one involves Fatty Arbuckle making an egg cream, indulging in mild racism and homophobia, date raping a woman, and sticking his head up a horse’s arse.

I did not like this one at all, although Buster Keaton looks quite fetching in a wedding dress.

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Notes

1. I watched this on Blu-Ray again. I grabbed the screenshot from this youtube version.

2. Which appears to be the same as the version in the boxset, actually, with the same soundtrack.

3. I was going to be as charitable as I could and say this was “of its time”.

4. But it’s not really.

5. It’s just a bit shit.

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Film Information

Title: His Wedding Night
Directors: Fatty Arbuckle, Buster Keaton
Year: 1917
Duration: 20 minutes
Watch: youtube

Categories
This Film Is More Than 100 Years Old

The Rough House (1917)

The Rough House is another Fatty Arbuckle silent comedy, co-diected this time with Buster Keaton, and starring pretty much the same cast as The Butcher Boy.

The first half of this is very similar to the first half of The Butcher Boy, being as it is a near ten minute ever-escalating food fight with the exact same cast of actors, but this time in a nice posh house rather than a butcher’s shop.

In the second half, Fatty Arbuckle has to make dinner for some new guests who turn out to be crooks. This section is surprisingly tedious, although there’s a nice bit where he slices up the potatoes using an electric fan (see above).

Later on there’s a chase, and a gunfight, and Buster Keaton executing an amazing overhead kick to a man’s face that Jackie Chan would have been proud of (see below). And yet it’s still all a bit boring for some reason.

(The reason is there’s no Luke the Dog at all)

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Notes

1. I watched this on blu-ray again, but took the screenshots from this version on youtube.

2. The restored version on the blu-rays looks much nicer than that. You can actually see their faces, for one thing.

3. So I apologise for the poor quality images above.

4. Maybe one day I will learn how to take screenshots from blu-rays, but I doubt it’ll be anytime soon.

5. I’ve said this before, but I love the way old silent films shot on static cameras like this have the feel of some strange 80s/90s adventure games, each room in the house a separate screen.

6. I don’t know if anyone’s ever made a silent comedy adventure game but someone definitely should at some point.

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Film Information

Title: The Rough House
Directors: Fatty Arbuckle, Buster Keaton
Year: 1917
Duration: 20 minutes
Watch: youtube