The Best Arbuckle/Keaton Collection (1919)

Arbuckle & Keaton - a synergistic relationship if ever there was one

This is a great set that shows how Buster Keaton learned the art of making comedy films under the tutorage of Roscoe Arbuckle from 1917-1919 and gradually advanced from apprentice to partner. There are twelve of their two-reelers included. The only one known to be in existence that is not in this set is 1918's "The Cook", which was the last short that Keaton and Arbuckle did before Keaton left for the army during World War I. It was said by Keaton himself that the only disagreement the pair ever had that they could not settle was that Arbuckle believed that you had to assume that the audience for comedy was at the mental level of a twelve year old. Keaton believed that you had to give the audience more credit than that in their capacity to grasp more subtle humor. The two may have never formally settled this friendly disagreement, but it is easy to see that - consciously or not - Arbuckle is being shifted into some of Keaton's theories of comic filmmaking over the three year period of their partnership. In their first film together, "The Butcher Boy", the humor is based on the usual mayhem of slapstick comedy of the 1910's - people throwing pies and sacks of flour at one another. By the time the two make their final film together - "The Garage" - there is definitely the Keaton trademark of humor clearly showing. For example, when Buster has his trousers shredded by Luke the dog he avoids arrest for exposing himself to "a virgin of 35" by cutting the kilts and hat off of the figure on a nearby billboard and pretending to be a Scotsman - typical Keaton resourcefulness in a crisis.

Neither Keaton nor Arbuckle have any fixed persona in these films. One of the treats of this set is to see Buster playing all kinds of characters with all kinds of reactions. In "Oh, Doctor" he plays Arbuckle's son who is often in a fit of tears, in "Coney Island" he plays a lifeguard and nemesis to Arbuckle's character, laughing and smiling at different points throughout the film. In "Good Night Nurse" Keaton plays a quack doctor who smiles and flirts with Arbuckle - a patient disguised as a nurse who is trying to escape Keaton's clinic.

"The Cook", which is on the set "The Cook and Other Treasures", to me is the best of the Keaton and Arbuckle shorts for specifically showing off Arbuckle's talents, from his great juggling talent to his version of the dance of Salome. It' definitely worth a look after you finish this set. October 7, 2007

one of the great silent comedy teams

What a great comedy team they made, one the establised but soon to fade star, the other a rising apprentice star. Yes, there is much pure slapstick included, but there's lots of clever gags too. Perhaps my favorites are "The Bell Boy" and "The Garage". Why? Partly, because they came the closest to being an early version of the Laurel and Hardy team.
It's just too bad they were not able to continue in this direction. I've seen Keaton films without Arbuckle, but not Arbuckle films without Keaton. Thus far, I much prefer them together. September 18, 2007

Keaton meets Arbuckle

This 2-disc set compilation contains 12 ( including Buster's debut in " The butcher boy " ) of the 15 two-reels comedies that both comics interpreted together ( only one, " A country hero " ( 1917 ), is lost ), all of them directed between 1917 and 1919 by Roscoe " Fatty " Arbuckle himself ( there are only doubts with " Coney Island " that some specialists authorize entirely to Walter Lang ). Fatty's conception of comedy was pretty superfluous and mechanical ( just inversely that his friend Buster ), based on easy misunderstandings and jokes and the humorous explotation of his enormous body . However, the three last comedies of the couple Arbuckle-Keaton ( that not accidentally coincide with a progressive higher protagonism of Buster so much as actor as gagman and who one year later would direct his own comedy shorts for producer Joseph M. Schenck too ), specially "Back Stage" and "The garage ", are fine constructed slapsticks with a good comedy timing and clever comic situations. The twelve shorts in this compilation are in chronological order: "The butcher boy" ( 1917 ); "The rough house" ( 1917 ); "His wedding night" ( 1917 ); "Oh, doctor" ( 1917 ); "Coney Island" ( 1917 ); "Out west" ( 1918 ); "The bellboy" ( 1918 ); "Moonshine" ( 1918 ); "Good night, nurse" ( 1918 ); "Back stage" ( 1919 ); "The hayseed" ( 1919 ) and "The garage" ( 1919 ).The copies of all them are fine, as well as the piano accompaniment by Neil Brand. The DVD includes a brochure by Jeffrey Vance, co-author with Eleanor Keaton ( the third and last Buster's wife) of "Buster Keaton remembered".

A very nice compilation with a pretty lower price and two more comedies than Kino's edition. July 14, 2005

Very funny comedy from the late Teens

I rented this from the local library and liked it so much and found it so great and funny that I knew I would have to buy myself my own copy later. A lot of people who aren't familiar with the genre at all constantly assert that silent comedy was little more than pie fights and police chases, but the shorts on these two discs reveal that that's not true at all and is little more than an urban legend spread by people who have no serious experience with this forgotten world of comedy in the late Teens. Some comedies (or just films in general) from this long ago do look unsophisticated and crude by modern sensibilities, but the stuff that Roscoe, Buster, Al St. John, and their other co-stars were doing in the late Teens stands head and shoulders over a lot of the lesser-evolved comedy shorts from the Teens. The plot might not always make sense, and some shorts may jump around in terms of plot and setting, but that's part of what makes early film comedy so fun. Besides giving a wonderful view of Buster's earliest films and seeing what natural comedic presence and talent he had even in his earliest work, it's also a wonderful view into a bygone world, one with long-gone makes of cars, horse-drawn wagons, fashions, trains, old-fashioned fire engines, elevators, hotels, and, most priceless of all, the authentic footage of Coney Island, particularly in Luna Park, which was destroyed by fire in the 1940s. Even though there are efforts to restore Coney Island today, there's no substitute for seeing how it really looked during its glory days, before it became as run-down and has-been as it is today. Luke the dog is also really good, as much a screen presence, in his own canine way, as his human co-stars.

The much-discussed scene in 'Out West,' when an African-American man goes into the bar where Buster just gave Roscoe a job as a bartender and a bunch of mean cowboys, even Roscoe himself, start shooting at his feet to make him dance till the woman from the Salvation Army comes to the rescue, is very disturbing and hideously-aged, although as difficult as this is to watch in the modern era, it really only lasts for maybe a minute and isn't the main focus of this short. Although it's one thing to make allowances for an old film only having African-Americans in serving positions or having them act in overly cartoonish ways, this section could not be excused in the same way; things like this and much worse really were happening back then, and comes across as racist and horribly dated more than other films which might show their African-American characters in servile positions or caricaturish mannerisms; those kinds of depictions aren't necessarily racist.

Some people don't find Roscoe's films funny or that well-aged because he doesn't really have an established screen persona and because some of his shorts jump around in terms of setting and plot without seeming rhyme or reason, and while I don't agree with them, that is a valid criticism. We can predict how other comedic actors of the era, like Charlie Chaplin or Laurel and Hardy, would react to any given situation and what they'd do to get out of trouble, save the day, get the girl, but, while funny and brilliant, Roscoe's reactions don't really follow that same kind of established character pattern. The characters he plays are usually shy, sneaky, inventive, nice guys, but his appeal is more of an everyman, someone you can relate to even if you wouldn't do some of the crazy things he does, and a comedian doesn't need to have a developed screen character, like never smiling or talking, going around in oversized clothes, or being a childlike man who overreacts to everything to establish rapport with the audience and make people root for him and feel sympathy towards him. May 20, 2005

Indispensable for Fans of Comedy

It has been claimed more than once that Fatty Arbuckle taught Buster Keaton the mechanics of making movies, and Buster taught Fatty the artistry of making film comedies. Although things are invariably more complicated, this survey of the Arbuckle/Keaton partnership essentially supports this idea. What's great about the collection from an historical perspective is that it covers their entire period together, from the Butcher Boy (April 1917) to The Garage (late 1919). What a difference in artistry between these films! The Butcher Boy is not far removed from the Keystone style, except for Buster's contribution (compare Chaplin's stealing the scene as a supporting player in The Knock Out of 1914). By contrast, The Garage, the last chronologically in the series, lays almost completely new ground for comedy: it is pure comic ballet, combined with Keaton's creative use of nature and machine as props, and a much more controlled concept of mayhem. No one, not even Chaplin, was creating and executing such fresh concepts in 1919.

Between these two milestones, there's a lot of fun to be had. However, a noticeable difference in quality can be seen between the first 9 movies in the set, and the last 3, made after Keaton returned from World War 1. In the first set, Keaton is primarily a supporting player for Arbuckle, often stealing the scene by his physical grace, but not on the whole dominating the story. For modern viewers, these Keystonesque films are less satisfying -- Arbuckle was simply not the creative visionary that Keaton was. The best in this earlier set might be Coney Island, for its creative use of the amusement park. Of interest to Keaton fans is his early experimentation with different characterizations before converging on the "stone face" -- there's a surprising variety in Keaton's facial expressions here, from laughter to uncontrollable Stan Laurel-like tears.

By the time of Back Stage, the first of the last three films in this series, Buster had essentially evolved his character into the one he was to portray throughout the rest of his career, down to the pork pie hat and vest. He also emerges as the primary creative force of these films, with Arbuckle serving as a willing partner of the Keaton vision. The gags and plot in the last films anticipate Keaton's future work far more than Arbuckle's formulae. For example, Keaton starts to experiment with camera tricks, as in The Hayseed, when he reverses the camera in order to "return the nag to the stable". By the time of the Garage, Keaton's acknowledged favorite in the series, we have witnessed the emergence of a singular creative force. These films also teach us to appreciate the contribution of Fatty Arbuckle to Keaton's development, as Keaton himself did until the end of his life. February 4, 2005

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