Here's good news for fans of Roscoe Arbuckle: a recently recovered, newly restored two-reel comedy from his heyday is now available on DVD. This film, simply titled "Love," is included in the 4-disc box set called The Forgotten Films of Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle, and for my money it's one of the definite stand-outs of the set.
This short was originally released as part of Arbuckle's Comique series of 1917-19. Fans know that most of these films featured the young Buster Keaton in various supporting roles, but Love was made while Buster was still overseas in the Army, so the role that most likely would have been his has been assigned Monty Banks, a charming comic who later starred in a series of his own. As for the plot, Roscoe is once more pitted against icky Al St. John for the hand of a young lady, this time played by a strikingly attractive actress named Winifred Westover, who later married cowboy star William S. Hart. Winnie's father is played by a strikingly UN-attractive character actor named Frank Hayes, who looked like a gargoyle. Once again, Hayes has been cast as a surly farmer who tries to force his daughter to marry Al St. John -- a guy no woman would ever willingly marry, in these comedies -- because he has more property than poor but lovable Roscoe. After an attempted elopement fails, Roscoe nonetheless comes up with a stratagem to prevail and win the girl.
Love features several elaborately staged acrobatic sequences that display a lot more ingenuity and advance planning than the obviously improvised knockabout of Keystone days. The botched elopement is a highlight, but to my taste the routine involving Hayes falling into a well over and over is repeated a little past the limit of funniness. (In college days I knew a drama professor, and when his aspiring playwright students repeated themselves he'd say: "I think you've visited that particular well once too often." Those words are especially apt to describe this scene.) One of the funniest bits is also one of the simplest, i.e. when Roscoe, rejected as a suitor by his girl's father, plays out his anguish in deliberately over-the-top, melodramatic fashion. He's hilarious, and demonstrates real acting skill. This is also the case during an extended scene played in drag. Drag sequences turn up in many of Arbuckle's films, but here, surprisingly enough, Roscoe is not only funny but downright poignant.
Arbuckle's development as a performer and director is clear when one watches this film back to back with When Love Took Wings, made at Keystone in 1915 and also featuring Al St. John and Frank Hayes in roles very similar to the ones they play here: Love is a more polished and satisfying comedy in every way. The very familiarity of the plot motifs and gags make this film feel like a Roscoe's Greatest Hits album, a package of tried-and-true routines he'd worked and reworked for years, but now executed with more finesse than during his apprenticeship.
The pamphlet that accompanies the discs in the recent box set includes an essay on the restoration of Love that makes fascinating reading for buffs. It's explained that the film we see today was painstakingly pieced together from two fragmented prints held in far-flung archives, one in Italy and one in the Netherlands. After all that work it would have been a let-down if the movie itself had been poor to begin with, but happily this comedy is a notable addition to the Arbuckle canon, and a real treat for fans. The restoration crew deserves a hearty round of applause for a job well done.
This short was originally released as part of Arbuckle's Comique series of 1917-19. Fans know that most of these films featured the young Buster Keaton in various supporting roles, but Love was made while Buster was still overseas in the Army, so the role that most likely would have been his has been assigned Monty Banks, a charming comic who later starred in a series of his own. As for the plot, Roscoe is once more pitted against icky Al St. John for the hand of a young lady, this time played by a strikingly attractive actress named Winifred Westover, who later married cowboy star William S. Hart. Winnie's father is played by a strikingly UN-attractive character actor named Frank Hayes, who looked like a gargoyle. Once again, Hayes has been cast as a surly farmer who tries to force his daughter to marry Al St. John -- a guy no woman would ever willingly marry, in these comedies -- because he has more property than poor but lovable Roscoe. After an attempted elopement fails, Roscoe nonetheless comes up with a stratagem to prevail and win the girl.
Love features several elaborately staged acrobatic sequences that display a lot more ingenuity and advance planning than the obviously improvised knockabout of Keystone days. The botched elopement is a highlight, but to my taste the routine involving Hayes falling into a well over and over is repeated a little past the limit of funniness. (In college days I knew a drama professor, and when his aspiring playwright students repeated themselves he'd say: "I think you've visited that particular well once too often." Those words are especially apt to describe this scene.) One of the funniest bits is also one of the simplest, i.e. when Roscoe, rejected as a suitor by his girl's father, plays out his anguish in deliberately over-the-top, melodramatic fashion. He's hilarious, and demonstrates real acting skill. This is also the case during an extended scene played in drag. Drag sequences turn up in many of Arbuckle's films, but here, surprisingly enough, Roscoe is not only funny but downright poignant.
Arbuckle's development as a performer and director is clear when one watches this film back to back with When Love Took Wings, made at Keystone in 1915 and also featuring Al St. John and Frank Hayes in roles very similar to the ones they play here: Love is a more polished and satisfying comedy in every way. The very familiarity of the plot motifs and gags make this film feel like a Roscoe's Greatest Hits album, a package of tried-and-true routines he'd worked and reworked for years, but now executed with more finesse than during his apprenticeship.
The pamphlet that accompanies the discs in the recent box set includes an essay on the restoration of Love that makes fascinating reading for buffs. It's explained that the film we see today was painstakingly pieced together from two fragmented prints held in far-flung archives, one in Italy and one in the Netherlands. After all that work it would have been a let-down if the movie itself had been poor to begin with, but happily this comedy is a notable addition to the Arbuckle canon, and a real treat for fans. The restoration crew deserves a hearty round of applause for a job well done.
