Synopsis
Arbuckle escapes the watch of his domineering wife and heads for Coney Island. Keaton arrives that same day with his attractive, and rather easy, girlfriend, who is immediately stolen from him by St. John.
Coney Island
1917 Directed by Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle
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Two words: STANDING. BACKFLIP.
Ok, two more: LIFEGUARD. OUTFIT.
Last two, I promise: BUSTER'S. SMILE.
Otherwise, not much to see.
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I really need to stop watching these old films because Coney Island circa 1905-1930 seems like a paradise completely geared towards my sensibilities, and being super wistful for a past you can't go to seems fairly unhealthy. I mean, the Witching Waves? Goddamn!
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One film you won't find in Criterion Channel's September lineup of NYC stories is Coney Island (available on YouTube), a two-reel comedy written by, directed by and starring one of the most successful silent-screen comedians of the 1910s, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle. Alongside his good pal Buster Keaton (who grins and laughs in several scenes, besides wearing an adorable lifeguard uniform and doing an impressive backflip) and nephew Al St. John, Arbuckle's antics take him all over the Brooklyn amusement park's beach and rides. I've seen this short so many times since childhood that I'm no longer sure whether I actually find it funny or if I just have a well-established affection for its players - certainly I don't love the…
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FATTY ARBUCKLE IN DRAG IS NOT FUNNY. STOP IT. Buster Keaton steals the show in his largest role to date. That guy is going to do bigger and much better things than this. Mark my words.
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getting extremely exasperated with arbuckle. literally every element of this plot was straight trash my guy. you're lucky you had buster to do backflips and emote (!!!), so an extra star for that
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Keaton and Arbuckle's love lives cause predictable issues at Luna Park.
It's hard to review these Arbuckle/Keaton films as you (or definitely I) come to them for Keaton but he's definitely second fiddle and you find yourself wishing his role was bigger and fidgeting through the Arbuckle material. This one has some really good stuff and it's great to see the actual coney island attractions, thats probably the highlight of the film really, it's an amazing historical document, but it's hard to think of it as top notch keaton even if he gets more to do than in a lot of them.
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Don't approach this as a Buster Keaton film -- he's very much a supporting character, with less to do than another regular Arbuckle foil, the lanky Al St John, though he makes a fine contribution and it's interesting to see him laugh, smile and mug his way through some of the action, still some way from refining his later deadpan persona. Instead, it provides some evidence as to why, some years before the scandal that ruined him, Roscoe Arbuckle was one of the highest-paid performers in Hollywood.
Arbuckle is charming, amazingly athletic given his body size, and confidently self-aware, often looking knowingly at the audience and explicitly breaking the fourth wall in a scene where he modestly persuades the camera…
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I thought I'd figured out Fatty Arbuckle's formula - Fatty has a job, slapstick ensues, Fatty gets bored ten minutes in and everyone starts attacking each other for reasons which aren't usually clear - but this one is VERY different! For one thing, the location offers a lot more storytelling possibility than the usual "three guys in a room" stuff, and for another thing Buster keeps making FACIAL EXPRESSIONS and it's weird and, actually, pretty cool. Much as I love his deadpan routine, he's pretty amazing in this one - especially when he just busts out a backflip for no reason, while dressed as a lifeguard.
The gags aren't particularly memorable in this one, but seeing Coney Island from 100…
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A lesson for life: don’t ever be poor and never take a girl to the park if you don’t have any money, because you run in the risk of crossing paths with a deranged desperate fat man running away from his wife, just to have some fun and steal your girl away while unleash some friendly havoc while they go around having fun and leave you to feed on your own tears. That’s what the poor Buster Keaton’s suffers here, not taking a break on his wave of bad luck, losing his girl twice, first by the ugly Al St. John, who usually played the ugly antagonist in both Keaton and Roscoe's shorts, and them by a horny Roscoe.
With…
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I still don’t think Arbuckle is that funny as a performer (as usual Buster Keaton gets most of the biggest laughs), but as a comic mind he remains very sharp with a strong sense of how to take of from his subjext and how to shape rhythm to take advantage of it.
