Fatty's New Role

In experimenting with a new screen persona for Roscoe Arbuckle, this movie produces some mildly amusing results. Arbuckle had more than enough talent to play any number of character types, so he does a solid job here as well. But the character is not as likable or as interesting as were most of his other roles in the era. The main interest in this movie now may be its ironic and rather self-referential title.

Arbuckle plays a drunken vagrant who unwittingly becomes part of an elaborate practical joke that some bar patrons pull off on a saloonkeeper. Arbuckle gets some good moments of solo pantomime, and Mack Swain as the saloonkeeper has some amusing reactions to events. Otherwise, the actual story doesn't have all that much to offer.

It's watchable, and it is one more demonstration of Arbuckle's versatility, but he made many other movies that offer much more than this one does in terms of entertainment value.

In most of the 'Fatty' Arbuckle comedies I've seen Roscoe portrays a solid member of the bourgeoisie, usually married and employed in a respectable profession: grocer, baker, hotel manager, sometimes even a doctor or an officer of the law. In one late feature, Leap Year, Roscoe is an idle millionaire, but this seems to have been a rare exception; generally his circumstances were more modest, and when his profession was not specified his clothing and surroundings indicate a middle class lifestyle. In the aptly-named Fatty's New Role, however, Roscoe is a tattered hobo, not an elegant tramp like Chaplin but someone we'd call a "homeless person" today, a guy who sleeps wherever he can, bathes rarely, and lives on the generosity of others.

As the film opens Roscoe wakes up in a barn, then performs his "morning toilet" looking into a shard of broken glass. Suitably refreshed, he heads for a nearby tavern run by Schnitz (played by Mack Swain), apparently hoping for a free lunch. Schnitz promptly throws him out, but soon thereafter his regular patrons show him a news article about a vengeful hobo who has been blowing up local taverns from which he'd been ejected. Now Schnitz is worried. His raffish customers decide to play a prank on him by leaving him a note, supposedly written by Roscoe, saying that his tavern will be blown up at 3 P.M. this very day. Roscoe, meanwhile, has received a hand-out from a prosperous-looking Edgar Kennedy, and has used the money to buy a chunk of cheese the size and shape of a bowling ball. (One of my favorite moments in the film comes when an explanatory title offers the information: "HE LOVED CHEESE.") When Roscoe returns to Schnitz' bar just before 3 P.M., armed with this massive, bomb-like dairy product, he is treated like an honored -- and dangerous -- guest, and is permitted to eat and drink his fill.

That's the gist of the story, so one's degree of enjoyment of this film will depend on whether or not the scenario strikes you as funny. Personally, I enjoyed it. The gritty milieu is certainly offbeat for an Arbuckle comedy, although much of the humor is provided not by Roscoe himself but by Mack Swain, whose fearful reactions to loud noises and large packages supply most of the amusement -- admittedly, amusement of a rather dark variety, certainly for those of us watching this film in the Age of Terrorism. Mack Swain, like Ben Turpin, was a homely comic who relied heavily on his looks for laughs; thus, perhaps the funniest moment in Fatty's New Role is a simple tracking shot of Swain dashing away from an anticipated explosion. No gag is necessary, just an extended take of Mack Swain running. Surprisingly, Arbuckle plays his "new role" straight, so fans can cite this rather unusual turn as an example of his versatility, but nonetheless I prefer his traditional role: i.e. the naughty grown-up boy in a derby hat, dutifully fulfilling the expectations of middle-class respectability, but still gleefully sticking his tongue out at his Dragon Lady wife behind her back.

Instead of the usual characters, Fatty plays a hobo and he is bit difficult to recognize under the makeup and clothes. He is a lazy but harmless guy, but he is mistaken for a bomb-throwing maniac. It seems that recently, a guy has been going into bars and when he is told to pay up, he responds by tossing a bomb and running...talk about your contrived plots!!! Anyway, when Fatty wanders into a very German pub, he is mistaken for this madman and craziness erupts. It's funny to watch but completely ridiculous and pointless. While not a bad film, I much prefer him in his usual type of films--ones that don't call for crazed bombers and other impossible to believe story elements!

When hobo Roscoe Arbuckle is found to be lacking coin, he's thrown out of Mack Swain's bar. Some of his customers play a joke on Swain, writing him a note that a bomb will show up at three. Later, when Arbuckle shows up again with some money, Swain mistakes the cheese he's carrying for a bomb.

It's a set-up for Arbuckle to do some of his gags in his usual delightful manner. Chaplin would set them up to show off his grace; Keaton would build them up into huge, realistic-looking sets. Arbuckle just did the gag and moved on to the next one. All three methods have their points.

This time out Fatty is a amiable tramp and of course it's not difficult to make him look the part. He sleeps in a barn and tries to get himself a free breakfast and drink at Schnitz's Bar but gets thrown out. He's long gone but when the 'friends' of the owner read in the paper that a man has been causing havoc in bars after being thrown out, they play a jape on him that would land them in a secret CIA jail nowadays. They cook up a fake terrorist plot suggesting that his bar will be visited by a bomb at three o'clock.

Needless to say Fatty returns arrives back at three o'clock with a little money and chaos ensues. Talk about changing times! This is a film that not only couldn't be made today, if it was tried it would get the term 'plot device' banned. It certainly wouldn't be seen as comedy, but an anti-American attempt to throw scorn on the country's record on handling domestic terror threats.

As a film it isn't bad and is actually enjoyable for its lack of pace. The usual suspects are all here, with their outrageous facial hair: Mack Swain as Ambrose Schnitz, the bar owner, Edgar Kennedy, Slim Summerville and many of the rentacops of the era like Al St John. None of them get to kick anyone else's ass, literally or figuratively, and that seems like a real treat. I'm just sorry I missed Luke the Dog, as he was apparently in there somewhere, and he would have been my favourite actor in the film.