The Forgotten Films of Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle
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List Price: $49.95
Features
• Box set
• Black & White
• Closed-captioned
• Color
• DVD-Video
• Limited Edition
• NTSC
In Theaters : 29 October, 1917
DVD Release : 24 May, 2005 |
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The Forgotten Films of Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle description
Silent films and silent-film personnel always have an uphill fight when it comes to breaking through to modern-day audiences. Even in the best of circumstances, legend often gets in the way of direct experience. Roscoe Arbuckle presents perhaps the most extreme case. Few people now alive have seen him at work on screen. However, the most casual browser ... review details
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The Forgotten Films of Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle Customer Reviews
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♥♥♥♥♥
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A forgotten silent comedy genius gets the DVD he deserves
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"The Forgotten Films of Roscoe Fatty' ARBUCKLE" is a sad and wonderful four volume DVD boxed set. It is a heartfelt labor of love valentine to a great silent era movie clown who bounced back even stronger after a 1922 San Francisco sex scandal that was filled with scandalous lies and downright nastiness. Faced with a public that refused to believe the court ruling that he was innocent of all charges Arbuckle, helped by best friend Buster Keaton, became a renowned and downright brilliant writer and director in the late twenties. He also helped direct several Keaton silent feature masterpieces without credit.
What a lovely DVD boxed set this is! Volumes one and two, about two-and-a-half-hours each, give us the Keystone gems of 1914-1915. Roscoe Arbuckle stars in several two-reelers for Mack Sennett with newcomer Charlie Chaplin, including THE KNOCKOUT and THE ROUNDERS. These two volumes give generous coverage to "Fatty and Mabel" (Normand), often as neighbors, often married to one another. Titles include ...WASH DAY, ...AT THE SAN DIEGO EXPOSITION, FATTY'S NEW ROLE, FATTY'S FAITHFUL FIDO, ...MARRIED LIFE, and WISHED ON MABEL. These shorts are funny, poignant, and very nostalgic. I've only seen one Mabel Normand feature film, from 1923; I do wish she had lived to make more. Rumor has it that Mabel and Roscoe (no one close to him called him "Fatty") often directed their own films. And that Chaplin and Arbuckle (and Keaton later) stole gags from one another. Significantly, Arbuckle usually got there first.
ARBUCKLE disk three has FATTY'S TINTYPE TANGLE (1915); HE DID AND HE DIDN'T (1916) with full tinting, and the nostalgic CONEY ISLAND (1917). Co-stars include Keaton, Al St. John, Normand, Louise Fazenda, and Edgar Kennedy. But the jewel of disk three is the premiere revival of a "lost" film called LOVE (1919), with Monty Banks and St. John joining Roscoe. My only regret is the exclusion of my favorite "Fatty and Mabel" two-reeler, FATTY AND MABEL ADRIFT (1916). Maybe it can star in an Arbuckle volume two collection.
The real revelations take place in disk four with LEAP YEAR (1921), never released in America. It is presented here in a gorgeous 35mm tinted archive print found in Europe and shows us a new direction Arbuckle might have taken if the blasted scandal had not destroyed him forever as an actor. It is a Noel Coward-like drawing room romantic comedy. Let's search some more European film archives for other "lost" Arbuckle features from around 1921.
But the real astonishment for me with this whole incomparable boxed set is the second half of volume four, Arbuckle spending the 1920's busy as a stunningly creative writer and director named "William Goodrich." Rumor has it that, uncredited, Arbuckle helped best friend Buster Keaton direct several silent Keaton features. As Goodrich, he just about floors one with uproarious laughter in a 1925 western cliffhanger serial spoof called CURSES (Al St. John), the 1925-1926 Hollywood satires THE MOVIES (Lloyd Hamilton) and MY STARS (Johnny Arthur), and a 1926 thrill comedy called FOOL'S LUCK (Lupino Lane).
Funniest and most inventive of all is a 1932 sound one-reel domestic farce with Al St. John called BRIDGE WIVES. People, this comic masterpiece was made only one year before Arbuckle died, giving the complete lie to the Hollywood myth that he died alone and forgotten. He really died of a heart attack at a writer/director peak. And he was clearly magnificently talented in both capacities as "William Goodrich". We simply have to find some more "lost" Goodrich/Educational Pictures silent shorts if the found and restored ones here are this peerlessly funny!
Silent film comedy lovers, do yourselves a favor. Buy or rent the fabulously funny "The Forgotten Films of Roscoe Fatty' ARBUCKLE" on four disk DVD today. Spend four very special nights with Roscoe and realize that he truly was and is one of the silver screen's four great silent clowns, now and forever.
The DVD set, incidentally, comes with a lovely 36 page color booklet with insightful scholar essays on Roscoe Arbuckle's life and films.
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The Forgotten Films of Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle dvd movie.