Review of Back Stage

To my knowledge, Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle and Buster Keaton made up the first significant film comedy duo, consisting of a contrasting fat and thin or normal man. That in its self was not sufficient for success, but it seemed to help, as suggested by other successful examples, such as Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, and Jackie Gleason and Art Carnie. Unfortunately, the team of Arbuckle and Keaton would not last very long, with an output of only 14 comedy shorts. Today, we wish they could have costarred in many more., perhaps with simultaneous independent comedies.......This 2 reeler (about 20min.) involves the performers and stagehands of a vaudeville company. The stagehands consisted of Roscoe, Keaton, and 1a St. John: an Arbuckle regular during this period. They seem to be not familiar with the 2 stage performers: the eccentric dancer(Jack Cougan Sr.)and the strongman(Charles Post), both of whom make trouble for the stagehands.. With his high kicks, the eccentric dancer knocked Keaton down, and knocked Roscoe's hat off. The strongman has his assistant, Molly Malone, carry his 5 heavy suitcases, mostly with heavy weights in them. When Roscoe takes 3 of them to carry the rest of the way, , the strongman angrily takes them from him, and loads them back on Molly. Roscoe and the others are shocked by the abuse of Molly. Roscoe says he will talk to the strongman, but when he goes over, the strongman blows his hat back to Keaton. Roscoe retreats, and Keaton, who has found a fireman's ax, advances toward the strongman's back. He beans the strongman several times with the ax, to no effect. Roscoe has another idea: Attach wires to the ends of the strongman's barbell, and attach the other ends to the house electricity supply. When the unobservant strongman picks up the barbell, and Keaton turns on the juice, he collapses immediately, apparently dead, but he revives. Now, he refuses to take part in the show. The eccentric dancer also refused to perform, because the stagehands complained about his dancing. Both are in the audience, however. Thus, the rest of the crew is forced to improvise a play(rather than cancel the show). In general, I found their show boring. See what you think. While doing cartwheels in his drag getup, Keaton overdoes it, and lands on the eccentric dancer, who has been booing their performance. The strongman sees Roscoe wooing Molly, gets angry, and shoots Molly, who falls, apparently dead. But, very seldom does someone die in an Arbuckle comedy, despite appearances to the contrary. Eventually, she is taken to the hospital, where she recovers, as Roscoe looks on......During the play, the cardboard side of the house falls on Roscoe, who is extremely lucky to escape injury, since the open 2nd story window landed where he stood. Several times, I have seen this stunt in Keaton movies(as in "One Week"), except that the side of the real house is wood, instead of cardboard. Very dangerous! You can see this film at YouTube, and it's also available in several DVD collections.