The Waiters' Ball

The Waiters' Ball (1916)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Decent Keystone comedy has a cook (Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle) and a waiter (Al St. John) doing battle for the girl they both want to take to a dance. Before that though, the two must spend a day in the restaurant without killing one another (or a customer). THE WAITERS' BALL isn't going to be confused for a classic but I think it's mildly entertaining as long as you don't take it too serious. I think it's greatest strength are the two leads, both delivering top-notch performances even though the screenplay doesn't always give them much to do. The majority of the jokes during the first portion of the film deals with the waiter calling out various orders and then we see Fatty in the back causes all sorts of trouble. One of the best gags deals with an old man out in the restaurant who has a broken foot and the two men's arguments are constantly getting him hurt. The last portion of the film has Al St. John stealing Fatty's tuxedo so he must find another way to go so he dresses as a woman. I'm not exactly sure how that factors into the plot but I guess people wanted to see Fatty as a woman. Again, this isn't a classic but fans of the stars should enjoy it.

I am an admirer of Fatty Arbuckle and I believe it was everyone's great loss that he was found guilty of the incident that resulted in the death of a young woman four days later. Looking back, it is odd that such a popular figure should have so many people against him, including a jury that clearly had no sympathy for him, and which incredibly failed to consider the possibility that over a four-day period anything could cause someone to perish.

But let me cut to the chase: With the cinema still at a very embryonic stage back in 1916, this is a wonderfully constructed short, with a commanding performance from Arbuckle, ranging from pancake flipping to dancing to changing from male to female and back to male clothing, and all manner of slapstick.

Al St John is also very good, but not in Roscoe Fatty's class.

I had a belly laugh. Well worth watching!

Arbuckle hardscraple life began when his father refused to support his son at 11 years old upon the death of his mother. A velvety singing voice opened up doors for the young boy, introducing him to an early acting career in vaudeville. Touring internationally throughout the early 1900's, Arbuckle latched on to Chicago's Selig Polyscope Company in 1909 before signing on with Keystone in 1913. The over 300-pound comedian refused to be in skits involving his weight, like getting stuck in doorways, and lobbied to emphasize his physical dexterity, of which he was super coordinated for his size.

Sennett remembers first seeing Arbuckle, that he "skipped up the stairs as lightly as Fred Astaire and without warning went into a feather light step, clapped his hands and did a backward somersault as graceful as a girl tumbler."

Fatty's physicality was shown in "Adrift" is his personally-directed June 1916 freewheeling movie "The Waiter's Ball." Arbuckle plays a cook who displays a pancake juggling act throughout his kitchen duty. Actor St. John, a waiter, again plays foil to Roscoe's plans to attend a ball for restaurant professionals. This allows Arbuckle to cross dress as a woman, a schtick Fatty used a number of times, to go incognito to catch St. John in the act of stealing his formal ball suit.

Arbuckle eventually left Keystone and formed his own production company before signing a very lucrative contract with Paramount Pictures in 1918.

There is a lot of funny material in this Keystone comedy, and it easily makes up for the relative lack of a story. In fact, some of the best parts are the isolated gags and slapstick bits that are not meant to advance the story at all. The setting also gives Roscoe Arbuckle, in particular, a lot of good material to work with, and he is in his element.

The greater part of the running time simply shows Arbuckle, Al St. John, Corinne Parquet, and Kate Price as workers at a diner, where they have to get through a busy day before they can all go to a waiters' ball in the evening. As is often the case in these features, you can spot a number of gags that Arbuckle used in other movies, some previously and some subsequently. It particularly reminds you of "The Cook", with a similar setting and a lot of similar comic bits from Arbuckle.

In the second part, which takes place at "The Waiter's Ball", the highlight is one of Arbuckle's cross-dressing sequences. He did a fair number of such sequences in his short comedies, yet they are usually slightly different in their details and in the way they are used in the story.

The story here generally takes a back seat to the individual sequences and comedy ideas, but this works pretty well. Most of it is done with the experienced timing and boundless energy that usually characterized Arbuckle's short comedies.

This Keystone two-reeler is a prime example of Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle's style of comedy when he was at the height of his fame, second only to Chaplin in popularity. It's an amusing piece of work -- if you enjoy rough 'n' tumble slapstick, that is -- which gives Roscoe the opportunity to demonstrate his dexterity at flipping pancakes and large knives. He also gets to fight with Al St. John (his nephew in real life), and to don women's clothing, something he did fairly often in his films. This short was one of the last Arbuckle made for producer Mack Sennett before leaving to set up his own studio, where he would be joined almost immediately by Buster Keaton. Buster would introduce subtler humor and a more deliberate tempo into the mix, but meanwhile in The Waiters' Ball you'll find pure, undiluted Arbuckle.

The opening sequence is set in the diner where cook Roscoe and waiter Al compete for the attention of the pretty cashier. Don't expect refined material, this ain't Noel Coward, this is Keystone: there are gags involving ethnic stereotypes, gags involving an old man's gouty foot repeatedly stepped on, and lots of gags involving food (eggs, pancakes, fragrant cheese), most spectacularly a fish that refuses to surrender without a fight. Roscoe and Al have an especially vigorous dust-up with brooms. I have to confess I find it hard to warm up to Al St. John as a performer. I know he's usually supposed to be unsympathetic, so much so that it's kind of a running gag from film to film that the ladies ALWAYS reject his advances. Here, however, Al performs the demanding physical stunts so well he commands our respect. There's a great moment when he executes a backward roll over a table, and lands smack in a sitting position as adeptly as Buster would, later on. Even so, when the cashier rejects his invitation to the dance he responds by choking her, so I guess he's still Al St. John.

The climax of the film takes place at the Waiters' Ball itself, where Roscoe shows up in drag. Somehow when Arbuckle performs a drag routine there's something strangely innocent about it. Roscoe puts on a dress and the results are ludicrous, but not really 'suggestive' of anything except a hefty comedian putting on a wig and a dress to get laughs. I believe The Waiters' Ball offers one of the best and funniest examples of drag humor from his surviving work.

Personally I think Arbuckle reached his peak in the wonderful Fatty and Mabel Adrift, and in the best of the 1917-1920 Comique series with Keaton, but The Waiters' Ball holds up as one of his most satisfying efforts for Keystone, and well worth a look.