George Loane Tucker (author/director)
Walter MacNamara (writer)
H. Alderson Leach (cinematographer)
Jane Gail (lead)
Ethel Grandin (lead)
Matt Moore (lead)
A country girl, just into the big city, is misled from the train station to a 'den of iniquity' where she is held captive. Two immigrant girls, literally fresh off the boat, are promised 'good positions and salary' but instead are trapped in that same den. A naive city girl falls for a smooth operator who drugs her drink then carries her off to another den. All the work of one mob, and a high society elite who is, literally, 'the man higher up' - his office is upstairs from the mob's. This mob doesn't look tough, but they go out like gangsters - almost 20 years before "Little Caesar" and "Scarface". And although we're supposed to believe the man higher up had no connections with police, a member of the upper class rolling in cash by enslaving some of the most vulnerable members of the lower classes - in a way that's despised by general society - is nontheless an unusually provocative plot line for early American film.
George Nichols (director)
Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle (lead)
Minta Durfee (lead)
Edgar Kennedy (lead)
Virginia Kirtley (lead)
Keystone Cops (lead)
Echo Park Lake Bridge (location)
Keystone 3.5-step Porch (location)
Keystone (production)
As simple as it gets: no story, just the title, that leads to a chase. Yet it still manages to deliver the laughs, thanks to Roscoe's comic skills and a manic pace.
Mabel Normand (director/lead)
Charles Inslee (lead)
Alice Davenport (lead)
Charles Avery (lead)
Hank Mann (lead)
Al St. John (lead)
Keystone (production)
Starts slow, but builds: from the comic pairing of Mabel the farm beauty and her geeky Alfred E. Newman-clone “ideal” in the first third, to a symphony of quirky Keystone chaos in the final third. Second half is mostly a rework of The Bangville Police (1913).
Baldassarre Negroni (director)
Giorgio Ricci (cinematographer)
Fernand Beissier (author)
Francesca Bertini (lead)
Leda Gys (lead)
Emilio Ghione (lead)
Celio (production)
The diva plays the Italian-comedy/French-pantomime stock male character with a cute pear butt. Performance is in “classical” style - cinema's euphemism for “deathly boring”.
Nino Oxilia (director)
Giorgio Ricci (cinematographer)
Guglielmo Zorzi (writer)
Alberto Fassini (author)
Francesca Bertini (lead)
Angelo Gallina (lead)
André Habay (lead)
Fulvia Perini (lead)
Celio (production)
Essentially an aristocratic elaboration of Custody Of The Child (1909), aided by lush visuals, plus the emotional breadth and depth of the star's performance - and the diva dances!
Charles Chaplin (director/lead/writer)
Frank D. Williams (cinematographer)
Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle (lead)
Chester Conklin (lead)
Minta Durfee (lead)
Cecile Arnold (lead)
Vivian Edwards (lead)
Harry McCoy (lead)
Mabel Normand (cameo)
Keystone (production)
Featuring:
Charles Chaplin (director/lead/writer)
Frank D. Williams (cinematographer)
Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle (lead)
Minta Durfee (lead)
Al St. John (lead)
Cecile Arnold (lead)
Echo Park Lake (location)
Keystone (production)
Chappy Charbuckle again, this time in cahoots instead of in conflict. Essentially just a showcase for Chaplin's drunk act, it can be viewed as a spinoff from Mabel's Strange Predicament where the drunk act, though just a sideshow to the main story of Mabel's predicament, got the biggest laughs. But the side show drunk act was more extended (and much funnier) than here, where it is the main attraction: yet another case of spinoff failure.
Mack Sennett (director)
Frank D. Williams (cinematographer)
Marie Dressler (lead)
Charles Chaplin (lead)
Mabel Normand (lead)
Mack Swain (lead)
Charles Bennett (lead)
Chester Conklin (lead)
Keystone Cops (lead)
Echo Park (location)
Keystone 6-step Porch (location)
Keystone (production)
Aside from the claims of historical significance and Mabel's masterful mugging, there's not much here other than an unusually long version of the usual Keystone formula of slapstick gags strung together to loosely coincide with a threadbare story. Nice ending though.
Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle (director/lead)
Minnie Devereaux (lead)
Minta Durfee (lead)
Josef Swickard (lead)
Harry McCoy (lead)
Frank Hayes (lead)
Keystone (production)
Fatty is just about ready to take that walk on the wild side, when he is reined in by his iron Aryan heart (but only after he gets to sweet-smack some savage booty). Without another strong comic to work with, Arbuckle was not at his best. Moreover, even though this story was certainly a novelty, it never goes anywhere and simply is not funny, mainly of historical interest only.
Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle (director/lead)
Mabel Normand (lead)
Harry Gribbon (lead)
Minta Durfee (lead)
Al St. John (lead)
Frank Hayes (lead)
Keystone Cops (lead)
Echo Park (location)
Keystone 5-step Porch (location)
Keystone (production)
Ah, spooning...brings to mind some of life's sweetest intimate moments, doesn't it? Huddled over your heroin as it gently cooks up, or guiding that coke to the nostril flared in eager anticipation...But here “spooning” is used in the dated sense: i.e., what you do by the light of the silvery moon with your honey while you croon love's tune in June. That is, what other generations have called “making out”, “necking”, “petting”, “smooching”, “suck face”, “swapping spit”...you get the idea. So think of this as “Fatty's Suck Face Days”, where we get the rare cinematic treat of seeing crazy cops who are also bad cops: inept buffoons who also frame, rob and beat you.
Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle (director/lead)
Mabel Normand (lead)
Harry McCoy (lead)
Alice Davenport (lead)
Edgar Kennedy (lead)
Luke the Dog (lead)
Echo Park (location)
Keystone 5-step Porch (location)
Keystone 6-step Porch (location)
Keystone (production)
Way back in the days of Mabel's Strange Predicament, Harry McCoy played Mabel's boyfriend: a smiling, dapper, charmer prone to violent jealous fits. Now that Mabel's living with him, he's a foul, deadbeat slob - and still prone to violent jealous fits. Meanwhile, in the time of Predicament, Alice Davenport played an overbearing wife who was quick to catfight her neighbor Mabel. Now she's dumped the old man for Fatty - and still quick to catfight her neighbor Mabel. So when Fatty washes his hanky at the same time Mabel washes her panky, hanky meets panky. Somewhat atypical Keystone: more farce than slapstick.
Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle (director/lead)
Mabel Normand (lead)
Al St. John (lead)
Josef Swickard (lead)
Phyllis Allen (lead)
Keystone (production)
Modern science has yet to determine the precise sequence of events in the origin of the Loonyverse, but a general consensus has formed around this work. For the first 13 minutes of this remake of Those Country Kids, the humor stays around the level of Lumière's 1895 The Sprayer Sprayed (L'Arroseur arrosé): so slow and painfully corny that the cows protested that the stupidity was beneath their dignity. The only break in the drudgery is a rare glimpse at a dapper Al St. John (minus his clownish rube garb), who was surprisingly handsome beneath the makeup and mugging. But then, by some mysterious comic alchemy, the energy leaps exponentially as soon as Mabel dons a funny hat and cheerfully tosses a suitcase out one window, sending Roscoe crashing through another window, and the two of them steal Al's self-driving and self-willed car - starting a chase that pushes the silliness out of Keystone-realm into Comique-surreal. Clearly, this is such stuff as toons are made on.
Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle (director/lead)
Katherine Griffith (lead)
Edgar Kennedy (lead)
Minta Durfee (lead)
Frank Hayes (lead)
Glen Cavender (lead)
Keystone (production)
If you can't stand The Heat, watch as Fatty and crew show how to handle him.
Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle (director/lead)
Billie Bennett (lead)
Harry McCoy (lead)
Minta Durfee (lead)
Frank Hayes (lead)
Glen Cavender (lead)
Echo Park (location)
Keystone (production)
The second half of Mabel And Fatty's Wash Day gets reworked and grows into its own full reel. Harry McCoy's part has degenerated from a dapper charmer in Mabel's Strange Predicament, to a deadbeat slob in Mabel And Fatty's Wash Day, down to a purse snatcher in this one.
Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle (director/lead)
Mabel Normand (lead)
Alice Davenport (lead)
Ford Sterling (lead)
May Emory (lead)
Frank Hayes (lead)
Helen Carlyle (lead)
Slim Summerville (lead)
Keystone (production)
Keystone attempts a more fleshed out story, less reliant on gags and falls. Though not a screamer, Ford Sterling's masterful comic mugging keeps it from being a snoozer.
Carmine Gallone (director)
Domenico Grimaldi (cinematographer)
Nino Oxilia (writer)
Lyda Borelli (lead)
Cecyl Tryan (lead)
Fulvia Perini (lead)
Augusto Poggioli (lead)
Pina Menichelli (lead)
Società Italiana Cines (production)
The frequent visual jumps and disconnects make it obvious that parts are missing from this fragmented restoration. As further evidence, one of the three character names listed in the opening credits (“Richard Ruggero”) - presumably a main character - doesn't appear in any subsequent title card. Yet, unlike Malombra [1917], there is no source material to refer to for clarification of the story. In fact, it's possible that even if all fragments existed and were correctly assembled, the result would still be confusing as the story lacks depth and solid construction. It feels less like a coherent story, more like a string of cliche hacks quickly thrown together merely to capitalize on a star's appeal (by crew who didn't even spare the time to name the characters!).
But who cares about story? We're here to see the diva flammin' in high fashion, twisted into sultry poses (even dancing!), with that dreamy gaze that wails her tragic fate of being too hip for this world that doesn't deserve her. Lyda in motion is all the story we need...
Mack Sennett (director/lead/producer)
Mabel Normand (lead)
Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle (lead)
Joe Bordeaux (lead)
Keystone (production)
Please don't watch this - it's too long and painfully stupid, nothing more.
head city
has waived all rights to all work here that's not stolen from somewhere else.