In this, Roscoe Arbuckle's first appearance in a Keystone comedy -- his earliest screen credits date from four years earlier, even though no sign of the effort can be found -- he plays a member of the Keystone Kops. Gangster leader Fred Mace, tired of Roscoe's flirting with girlfriend (she looks a bit like Barbara Stanwyck would in thirty years, so who can blame either of them?), steals his pants... and then he and his gang go on the rampage, stealing all the Kops' pants.
The Keystones were frequently about doing what the audience had always wanted to do to the hated authorities, and this must have been a harmless outlet, the stealing of the policemen's dignity. Soon enough the Keystone lot would be populated with people with guns and bombs to blow people up.
The Keystones were frequently about doing what the audience had always wanted to do to the hated authorities, and this must have been a harmless outlet, the stealing of the policemen's dignity. Soon enough the Keystone lot would be populated with people with guns and bombs to blow people up.