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A slightly different draft of this was posted at the Love Confetta Tribe in honor of the source of the bounty.
Stuart Oderman's book on Roscoe is more that of a fan than a biographer. Oderman makes his living playing live accompaniment to silent films. He relates the salient facts and anecdotes, but has neither the distance nor much of the reliance on speculation of a usual biographer, not a bad approach in this case. Details of Arbuckle's early life were sobering. His abandonment by his father at age 12 when relatives put him on a train to San Jose and his father skipped out of town before he arrived. He drifted from washing dishes into performing initially just as a way to survive. He gravitated to being a so-called illustrated singer, a staple of Vaudeville lineups. Toured all over the country in Vaudeville and even some legitimate theatre, once picnicking on the Rio Grande, he and his troupe ended up throwing food to a band of Mexicans across the river, and Arbuckle threw a pie at a man who identified himself as Pancho Villa, who caught it and threw it back. Minta and Rosco played to miners in Tombstone and toured China and Japan in The Mikado, prior to ever setting foot in front of a camera. Later he had occasion to meet Caruso and sing for him, and was told he might have made it in an opera chorus.
The core of Oderman's book, its perspective, is largely based upon a series of interviews he conducted with Minta Durfee, Arbuckle's first wife and one of his co-stars both on stage and at Keystone. Despite having separated from Arbuckle in 1917, and him twice remarrying, she remained loyal to his memory right up to her own death in the mid 70's. The scandal is dealt with in workmanlike fashion, but it's the least interesting part of the story. Arbuckle comes across as a gracious and generous man, loyal to his friends and as Oderman notes probably the most chaste man in Hollywood at the time. Like his friends Normand and Keaton he loved elaborate practical jokes, and he and Buster in particular, pulled off some amazing pranks on Adolph Zukor, Marcus Loew and Pauline Frederick. Roscoe hated the name Fatty, it was Sennett's name for his character, but to his friends he was always Roscoe. Having now watched quite a few of his films the sobriquet seems even more ludicrous. Roscoe wasn't fat, there are no fat acrobats, he was solid, built like a tank and incredibly strong and agile according to Keaton. He was graceful, very light on his feet, Louise Brooks famously said dancing with him was like "floating in the arms of a huge donut.
Laughsmith's The Forgotten Films of Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle makes a wonderful companion to the book. The four DVDs are organized chronologically, disc one begins with Fatty Joins the Force from November 1913 and disc four concludes with Bridge Wives, a sound short directed by Arbuckle in 1932 in which Al St. John gradually goes mad from his wife's obsession with Bridge tournaments. It would have been nice if some of those last shorts in which he acted just prior to his death had been included, but perhaps they're lost or another volume is being planned. In any case the 32 films included in the set show Arbuckle's enormous impact on everyone from Keaton to Chaplin to Curly Howard to Jackie Gleason. Keaton always acknowledged his debt, saying Arbuckle had taught him everything he knew about film, but many of his bits are more associated with others, admittedly a not unusual occurrence for the time. I've still yet to see Max Linder, but in 1921's Seven Years Bad Luck he created the mirror gag which the Marx Brothers used so effectively in Duck Soup.The gag Arbuckle tossed off in The Rough House in 1917, Chaplin developed into the dancing dinner rolls in The Gold Rush. Curly Howard's slow burn, Gleason's pratfalls, these bear the marks of Arbuckle. I was watching Keaton's The Scarecrow again the other night and couldn't help noticing that Joe Roberts seems to be virtually channeling Arbuckle in his scenes with Sybil Seeley and Buster's dad. Arbuckle's dog Luke, a veteran of his own films, also gets into the act chasing Buster around the top of a ruined foundation wall.
The early Keystone films were built on very simple premises, and it's easy to see how quickly Arbuckle, Chaplin and Mabel Normand would grow beyond the confines of Sennett's simplistic vision. Still there are numerous fine bits, inventive gags and a truly wonderful chemistry between Arbuckle and Mabel Normand, in the eight Fatty and Mabel films included. Sadly Fatty and Mabel Adrift, one of their best, is not part of this set, perhaps because it was included in the Slapstick Encyclopedia box.
Disc one includes the two films Arbuckle made with Chaplin, The Knockout and The Rounders, as well as the first few of the Fatty and Mabel series.
Parks figure large in Keystone films, most of them taking place in either Griffith, Echo or others in the LA area. Disc two's Wished on Mabel, a simple little film based around a stolen watch, was shot in Golden Gate Park in 1915 and directed by Normand. Edgar Buchanan shows up with the cop schtick he was still doing in the Our Gang comedies, years later. Sennett fixtures Joe Bordeaux and Alice Davenport show up as the thief and matron respectively. This film, perhaps through being away from Sennett's eye, features a subtler less frantic style than many of the Keystone two reelers, allowing Roscoe and Mabel's playful chemistry space to create. This is one of several of the films featuring commentary by members of the Silent Movie Mafia, who impart interesting comical details of the films and cast.
Disc three includes another of the best Keystones, He Did and He Didn't, presented in both tinted and non-tinted prints. Roscoe is a doctor jealous of Mabel's visiting childhood friend played by William Jefferson. After a dinner of lobster and some uncomfortable scenes, Roscoe is called away on a case, which turns out to be a hoax. A would be robber has lured him from home, but he assumes his wife wants him out of the way to be with her lover. He returns finding them together in their bed clothes, after they've successfully fought off house robbers. He pushes the man out the window, strangles Mabel and walks out of the room. She comes to and goes after him with a gun. It's at this point we find we've been watching different bits of nightmares both Roscoe and his house guest have been experiencing. Each wake up with a start. Roscoe has fallen asleep in his den. Both hurry to Mabels' door to find her sleeping peacefully, look puzzled and then remember the lobsters and depart as friends. Like Fatty and Mabel Adrift this was made in Fort Lee, NJ away from Sennett's grasp, and his straightjacket vision of screen comedy. Normand and Arbuckle both shine.
A hitherto thought lost film, Love, made in 1919 while Keaton was still away in France is also included and features brilliant use of gags involving falling down wells. Only one of the Arbuckle / Keaton collaborations appears here, Fatty at Coney Island, but those are all available in other collections. The Waiter's Ball serves as a sort of companion piece, albeit without Keaton, to the newly rediscovered brilliance of The Cook. Roscoe's Cook character allows him to show his acrobatic juggling skill with knives and kitchen implements and here we find once again Roscoe's magic pot, developed further in The Cook, out of which comes eggs, coffee, soup, ice cream, even Roscoe's coat. St. John and Arbuckle perform the anvil chorus broom bashing gag, also seen in the Rough House, which they lifted from the Keaton's stage act. As a result, a year later Keaton was initially cool to the invitation to work on The Butcher Boy, until his fascination with the camera took over. St. John, Roscoe's nephew, who'd gotten his start as a trick cyclist, proved not the best foil for him, for one thing, as Keaton pointed out, he didn't know how to fall properly and would throw himself around and frequently break an arm or leg and be out of action. Roscoe is said to have been a perfectionist who shot gags over and over to get just right, but it all looks effortless. A work ethic adopted by Keaton, for instance the prehistoric baseball gag in Three Ages required 50 or 60 takes until the rock hit the stick just right, as to launch a line drive knocking down the foe who had thrown it.
Disc four begins with Leap Year, the last of eight feature length films Arbuckle finished in 1921prior to the Labor Day weekend which destroyed his career. It was released only in Europe. The impact of the scandal is clear as so many of his films like this one have only survived in European archives. Leap Year is more of a drawing room comedy, with the deft and inventive slapstick bits limited to the effects of the fits to which the character is prone. The remainder of disc five is taken up with shorts Arbuckle directed under pseudonyms after he was banned from the screen. His friends had got together and set up a company to produce two reelers in order to provide him with income. Keaton went so far as to sign 30% of his own profits over to Arbuckle. My Stars is a clever little farce with Johnny Arthur as the suitor of a woman who only has eyes for pin ups of matinee idols she receives in the mail. He gets the idea of becoming these stars for her, and transforms himself into Valentino as the Sheik only to find that she's moved onto Fairbanks. He then does himself up as Robin Hood by which time she's on to someone else. At one point she tells her butler how dreamy some idol is, to which he replies his favorite is Buster Keaton, a clear Arbuckle touch. Fool's Luck has English acrobat Lupino Lane, some relation to Ida, as a fop whose uncle has cut him off, having to vacate his hotel suite for lack of funds. There's a great gag in which he finds himself atop and hanging from a piano as it's lowered from a window several stories in the air.
The set is rounded out by a 35 page booklet of essays and notes. I hope this will allow for the reassessment of the work of the silent comic who's never received his due. Laughsmith's site announces two new books being prepared on Arbuckle, one an assessment of all of his films and the other devoted to clearing his name once and for all. There are also rumors that they may produce a similarly lavish set devoted to Mabel Normand, which would be wonderful news, if true.
Stuart Oderman's book on Roscoe is more that of a fan than a biographer. Oderman makes his living playing live accompaniment to silent films. He relates the salient facts and anecdotes, but has neither the distance nor much of the reliance on speculation of a usual biographer, not a bad approach in this case. Details of Arbuckle's early life were sobering. His abandonment by his father at age 12 when relatives put him on a train to San Jose and his father skipped out of town before he arrived. He drifted from washing dishes into performing initially just as a way to survive. He gravitated to being a so-called illustrated singer, a staple of Vaudeville lineups. Toured all over the country in Vaudeville and even some legitimate theatre, once picnicking on the Rio Grande, he and his troupe ended up throwing food to a band of Mexicans across the river, and Arbuckle threw a pie at a man who identified himself as Pancho Villa, who caught it and threw it back. Minta and Rosco played to miners in Tombstone and toured China and Japan in The Mikado, prior to ever setting foot in front of a camera. Later he had occasion to meet Caruso and sing for him, and was told he might have made it in an opera chorus.
The core of Oderman's book, its perspective, is largely based upon a series of interviews he conducted with Minta Durfee, Arbuckle's first wife and one of his co-stars both on stage and at Keystone. Despite having separated from Arbuckle in 1917, and him twice remarrying, she remained loyal to his memory right up to her own death in the mid 70's. The scandal is dealt with in workmanlike fashion, but it's the least interesting part of the story. Arbuckle comes across as a gracious and generous man, loyal to his friends and as Oderman notes probably the most chaste man in Hollywood at the time. Like his friends Normand and Keaton he loved elaborate practical jokes, and he and Buster in particular, pulled off some amazing pranks on Adolph Zukor, Marcus Loew and Pauline Frederick. Roscoe hated the name Fatty, it was Sennett's name for his character, but to his friends he was always Roscoe. Having now watched quite a few of his films the sobriquet seems even more ludicrous. Roscoe wasn't fat, there are no fat acrobats, he was solid, built like a tank and incredibly strong and agile according to Keaton. He was graceful, very light on his feet, Louise Brooks famously said dancing with him was like "floating in the arms of a huge donut.
Laughsmith's The Forgotten Films of Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle makes a wonderful companion to the book. The four DVDs are organized chronologically, disc one begins with Fatty Joins the Force from November 1913 and disc four concludes with Bridge Wives, a sound short directed by Arbuckle in 1932 in which Al St. John gradually goes mad from his wife's obsession with Bridge tournaments. It would have been nice if some of those last shorts in which he acted just prior to his death had been included, but perhaps they're lost or another volume is being planned. In any case the 32 films included in the set show Arbuckle's enormous impact on everyone from Keaton to Chaplin to Curly Howard to Jackie Gleason. Keaton always acknowledged his debt, saying Arbuckle had taught him everything he knew about film, but many of his bits are more associated with others, admittedly a not unusual occurrence for the time. I've still yet to see Max Linder, but in 1921's Seven Years Bad Luck he created the mirror gag which the Marx Brothers used so effectively in Duck Soup.The gag Arbuckle tossed off in The Rough House in 1917, Chaplin developed into the dancing dinner rolls in The Gold Rush. Curly Howard's slow burn, Gleason's pratfalls, these bear the marks of Arbuckle. I was watching Keaton's The Scarecrow again the other night and couldn't help noticing that Joe Roberts seems to be virtually channeling Arbuckle in his scenes with Sybil Seeley and Buster's dad. Arbuckle's dog Luke, a veteran of his own films, also gets into the act chasing Buster around the top of a ruined foundation wall.
The early Keystone films were built on very simple premises, and it's easy to see how quickly Arbuckle, Chaplin and Mabel Normand would grow beyond the confines of Sennett's simplistic vision. Still there are numerous fine bits, inventive gags and a truly wonderful chemistry between Arbuckle and Mabel Normand, in the eight Fatty and Mabel films included. Sadly Fatty and Mabel Adrift, one of their best, is not part of this set, perhaps because it was included in the Slapstick Encyclopedia box.
Disc one includes the two films Arbuckle made with Chaplin, The Knockout and The Rounders, as well as the first few of the Fatty and Mabel series.
Parks figure large in Keystone films, most of them taking place in either Griffith, Echo or others in the LA area. Disc two's Wished on Mabel, a simple little film based around a stolen watch, was shot in Golden Gate Park in 1915 and directed by Normand. Edgar Buchanan shows up with the cop schtick he was still doing in the Our Gang comedies, years later. Sennett fixtures Joe Bordeaux and Alice Davenport show up as the thief and matron respectively. This film, perhaps through being away from Sennett's eye, features a subtler less frantic style than many of the Keystone two reelers, allowing Roscoe and Mabel's playful chemistry space to create. This is one of several of the films featuring commentary by members of the Silent Movie Mafia, who impart interesting comical details of the films and cast.
Disc three includes another of the best Keystones, He Did and He Didn't, presented in both tinted and non-tinted prints. Roscoe is a doctor jealous of Mabel's visiting childhood friend played by William Jefferson. After a dinner of lobster and some uncomfortable scenes, Roscoe is called away on a case, which turns out to be a hoax. A would be robber has lured him from home, but he assumes his wife wants him out of the way to be with her lover. He returns finding them together in their bed clothes, after they've successfully fought off house robbers. He pushes the man out the window, strangles Mabel and walks out of the room. She comes to and goes after him with a gun. It's at this point we find we've been watching different bits of nightmares both Roscoe and his house guest have been experiencing. Each wake up with a start. Roscoe has fallen asleep in his den. Both hurry to Mabels' door to find her sleeping peacefully, look puzzled and then remember the lobsters and depart as friends. Like Fatty and Mabel Adrift this was made in Fort Lee, NJ away from Sennett's grasp, and his straightjacket vision of screen comedy. Normand and Arbuckle both shine.
A hitherto thought lost film, Love, made in 1919 while Keaton was still away in France is also included and features brilliant use of gags involving falling down wells. Only one of the Arbuckle / Keaton collaborations appears here, Fatty at Coney Island, but those are all available in other collections. The Waiter's Ball serves as a sort of companion piece, albeit without Keaton, to the newly rediscovered brilliance of The Cook. Roscoe's Cook character allows him to show his acrobatic juggling skill with knives and kitchen implements and here we find once again Roscoe's magic pot, developed further in The Cook, out of which comes eggs, coffee, soup, ice cream, even Roscoe's coat. St. John and Arbuckle perform the anvil chorus broom bashing gag, also seen in the Rough House, which they lifted from the Keaton's stage act. As a result, a year later Keaton was initially cool to the invitation to work on The Butcher Boy, until his fascination with the camera took over. St. John, Roscoe's nephew, who'd gotten his start as a trick cyclist, proved not the best foil for him, for one thing, as Keaton pointed out, he didn't know how to fall properly and would throw himself around and frequently break an arm or leg and be out of action. Roscoe is said to have been a perfectionist who shot gags over and over to get just right, but it all looks effortless. A work ethic adopted by Keaton, for instance the prehistoric baseball gag in Three Ages required 50 or 60 takes until the rock hit the stick just right, as to launch a line drive knocking down the foe who had thrown it.
Disc four begins with Leap Year, the last of eight feature length films Arbuckle finished in 1921prior to the Labor Day weekend which destroyed his career. It was released only in Europe. The impact of the scandal is clear as so many of his films like this one have only survived in European archives. Leap Year is more of a drawing room comedy, with the deft and inventive slapstick bits limited to the effects of the fits to which the character is prone. The remainder of disc five is taken up with shorts Arbuckle directed under pseudonyms after he was banned from the screen. His friends had got together and set up a company to produce two reelers in order to provide him with income. Keaton went so far as to sign 30% of his own profits over to Arbuckle. My Stars is a clever little farce with Johnny Arthur as the suitor of a woman who only has eyes for pin ups of matinee idols she receives in the mail. He gets the idea of becoming these stars for her, and transforms himself into Valentino as the Sheik only to find that she's moved onto Fairbanks. He then does himself up as Robin Hood by which time she's on to someone else. At one point she tells her butler how dreamy some idol is, to which he replies his favorite is Buster Keaton, a clear Arbuckle touch. Fool's Luck has English acrobat Lupino Lane, some relation to Ida, as a fop whose uncle has cut him off, having to vacate his hotel suite for lack of funds. There's a great gag in which he finds himself atop and hanging from a piano as it's lowered from a window several stories in the air.
The set is rounded out by a 35 page booklet of essays and notes. I hope this will allow for the reassessment of the work of the silent comic who's never received his due. Laughsmith's site announces two new books being prepared on Arbuckle, one an assessment of all of his films and the other devoted to clearing his name once and for all. There are also rumors that they may produce a similarly lavish set devoted to Mabel Normand, which would be wonderful news, if true.
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Re: Roscoe Arbuckle
Fri, August 24, 2007 - 7:19 AMThanks for this wonderful review! I became a big fan of Arbuckle's last year after seeing a number of his shorts during the annual Silent Clowns series here in New York (www.silentclowns.com/). I actually prefer Roscoe's style to that of Harold Lloyd or Charlie Chaplin; it's less innocent, more edgy. He certainly is an amazing acrobat and physical comedian.
I think of Arbuckle as sort of a bridge between the simple comedies of Mack Sennett and the inventive genius of Buster Keaton. Roscoe's most lasting contribution to film is, no doubt, his friendship with the young Buster Keaton, which led to Buster's apprenticeship in movie-making and subsequent career as the greatest of screen comics. Sennett and Arbuckle each gave birth to -- or allowed the development of -- something greater and richer than what they could themselves produce.
By the way, if you've ever had the chance to hear Stuart Oderman accompany a silent film (comedy or drama), you'll know he is brilliant at it. I always seek out the opportunity to hear him play. -
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Re: Roscoe Arbuckle
Fri, August 24, 2007 - 3:50 PMI chanced upon The Silent Clowns site a few days ago and was impressed with its scope. Was that series inaugurated by the late Walter Kerr? I tend to like Arbuckle more than Lloyd and Chaplin as well, though I think his character is, if anything, more innocent than either of them. It's just that the gags have more of an edge to them.
I used to think of Arbuckle primarily by his influence and mentoring of Buster's film skills, as all I had seen prior to this were the Comiques, but I'm beginning to think that it's unfair to dismiss his own contributions. The commentators point out that critics make the assumption that any funny gag in the comiques was Buster's idea, but I think their collaboration was more fluid than that would suggest. We don't know what Arbuckle may have done had his career not been curtailed. Certainly the evidence of Leap Year shows him moving towards more character driven comedy than he's known for today. It's closer to The Saphead in tone than any Keystone short. He was considered a consummate professional. The director of Leap Year, James Cruze, said after Arbuckle was banned that he'd direct for free to just to have a chance to work with Arbuckle again.
I wasn't aware of Oderman prior to reading this book. Does he stick to piano scores or organ or what? I noted with interest Walter Kerr's remarks that simple piano accompaniment was the least representative of the music heard during the original runs of silent films, that almost every theatre had an orchestra or at least an organ and was supplied with detailed cue sheets. -
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Re: Roscoe Arbuckle
Fri, August 24, 2007 - 6:07 PMI go as frequently as I can to silent movie screenings here in New York. Most often they are accompanied by a solo piano. Some of the movies come with a synchronized musical score (on the film), either original or sometimes added later (those are usually the worst, often just ragtime piano that has nothing to do with the movie).
Ben Model, who accompanies the Silent Clowns series and also plays for silent films shown at the Museum of Modern Art, has a gizmo that he hooks up to his electronic keyboard that allows him to produce a sound similar to the old Wurlitzer organs. It's a clever idea, but I find it somewhat distracting. It's quite rare to hear a real organ, and even rarer to hear a full orchestra. There's a three-man group called the Alloy Orchestra that occasionally performs terrific newly-composed scores for silent movies. Don't miss them if you ever get the chance.
Of the four people who most often accompany silent movies in New York, I like Stuart Oderman's playing the best. He really seems to "feel" the film, sometimes letting the music fall quiet for a few moments when it is appropriate. The other one who's right up there with Oderman is Steve Sterner. He is the usual accompanist for silent movies at Film Forum, and he's really a genius at it, composing his own stirring scores that heighten the beauty of the films. Ben Model and Donald Sosin, the other two men who often accompany silents in this area are both good, but they have an occasional tendency to overplay, that is, to keep pouring on the music at times when less would be more. -
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Re: Roscoe Arbuckle
Fri, August 24, 2007 - 9:35 PMI saw the Alloy Orchestra perform their score to Steamboat Bill, Jr. and have the DVD with it and The General which they also scored. They're recommended and the prints are superior to the Kino releases, only they don't have the ingenious two reelers that accompany those. Modern scores are apparently frowned upon by many fans of silent film, but I think they often fit as well or better than perriod music would, Clubfoot Orchestra's Sherlock, Jr., Bill Frisell's take on Go West, The High Sign and One Week, Art Zoyd's Metropolis and Nosferatu, Gary Lucas doing The Golem, more than one score for Man with a Camera, including one by the late Tom Cora. Has Oderman recorded any of his scores?
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