Arbuckle & Keaton Vol. 2

Rating:
Summary: The Fat Man is Back Again
Review: With this second volume, Kino International continues their salute to the sadly forgotten and largely misunderstood silent comedian Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle. This set of five comedies contains three of the best in the series plus the final short that Arbuckle and Keaton made together. BACK STAGE gives us a glimpse of the rural theaters of the past. It shows off Fatty and Buster to good advantage and features several gags that Keaton would recycle in his short, THE PLAYHOUSE. It also gives us the rare opportunity to see John Coogan (Jackie's father) do his famous dance routine. GOOD NIGHT NURSE has a memorable opening of Arbuckle in the rain trying to light a cigarette. This story of undergoing the cure in a sanitarium features a spirited performance from his long time co-star Alice Lake. We also get to see an expressive Buster Keaton, though not as expressive as he is in CONEY ISLAND. This short shows what made Arbuckle so popular before the scandal that ruined his career. His charm, his expressions, his acrobatics and his best "in drag" performance are all captured for posterity along with the Coney Island of 1918. Arbuckle's nephew, Al St. John (who bears an uncanny resemblance to Jim Carrey), is given one of his best roles. Also check out Buster's backward flip. THE ROUGH HOUSE has Fatty doing the dinner roll routine that Chaplin would use in THE GOLD RUSH and contains a number of violent sight gags. THE GARAGE was the last in the series and features Buster as the main focus. As in Volume One of the series, the transfers are for the most part far superior to previous releases (with the exception of THE GARAGE) and are complemented by the Alloy Orchestra's commissioned scores. It's great to have these available at last for all to see.