Love (1919)
*** (out of 4)
Pretty good comedy has a poor farmer (Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle) wanting to marry his neighbor (Winifred Westover) but her father (Frank Hayes) demands that she marry another guy (Al St. John) who has more money. Fatty is pretty much kicked out of the house but he plans his revenge, which includes getting the woman he loves. This two-reeler has quite a few laughs from start to finish but there are a few jokes that don't work. The opening gag with Fatty's "cheap" car is very good but then we get a long running gag of the father being dropped down a well. Not only do we see him drop once but it keeps happening over and over and after a while you're really not finding funny anymore. I thought the film started to drag a little here but things quickly picked up. One of the highlights is when the three men find themselves in the backyard having a broom fight where they just keep hitting each other in the butt. Another fine sequence happens when Fatty drops some soap into the food that the family is about the eat. The film is pretty predictable from beginning to end as we've seen this type of film before in early films from Fatty. As for Fatty, he has that comic timing that people have come to love and he could do this type of role in his sleep. Al St. John made a career out of playing Fatty's rival and he too is in good form here. Hayes gets a lot of laughs as the cranky father but it's Westover who really steals the film with her beauty.
