Oh Doctor!

Though much of it is rather silly, "Oh Doctor!" has some good material too, and it is generally entertaining. The story is goofy and implausible, but it is told and played with verve by a pretty good cast. 'Fatty' Arbuckle plays a pretty disreputable character who is not really sympathetic, yet Arbuckle's good-natured energy is enough to make you hope that things will turn out all right for "Dr. Fatty". Buster Keaton's performance as the doctor's son (mostly a foil for 'Fatty') is rather interesting, because it is the exact opposite of the stoic manner that he adopted in his own later pictures - his performance here is even more exaggerated than in some of the other short features he made with Arbuckle.

The story hops around between a number of settings, and without a good cast it might not have worked very well. But the different settings do give rise to some worthwhile comedy material. There are a good number of Arbuckle/Keaton shorts that are better, but "Oh Doctor!" is still worth seeing if you enjoy the lively antics of Arbuckle & company.

Roscoe Arbuckle plays a rude family man who argues bitterly with his wife and pushes around his young son (played by a twenty-one year old Buster Keaton!). When he is lured in by a greedy vamp who, along with her thieving cohort played by Al St. John, his wife's jewels are endangered, in addition to Arbuckle's own finances, which are all at stake in a horse race.

Oh Doctor! is one of Arbuckle's stronger efforts, with more of a coherent plot and character-based gags. Arbuckle plays a truly horrendous person, which is funny in a dark way. Al St. John seems to be a love or hate performer in my circles, but he's great here as the scheming conman. Folks used to Buster Keaton's stoic manner will be shocked to see him mug so here, crying and laughing and whining with his mouth gaping open at its fullest capacity. Especially hilarious when you read interviews of his from the 1950s and 1960s in which he proclaimed he could not smile in front of a camera ever. That's show business, kiddos.

Buster Keaton's fourth film and credited as containing his most animated facial expressions while playing Fatty Arbuckle's son appears in September 1917's "Oh Doctor!" Distribution company Paramount Pictures was so impressed with Arbuckle's Keystone Studio movies its executives offered Roscoe in late 1916 his own comedy studio under the name Comique Film Corporation as well as giving Fatty full control over his productions. Arbuckle agreed, and set up his studio on 318 East 48th Street, Manhattan (which is now an indoor parking garage). Arbuckle made 21 films from 1917 to 1919 under the Paramount umbrella, using the studio for interior filming while locating in New Jersey's countryside for his bucolic exterior sequences.

Keaton plays Arbuckle's son in "Oh Doctor!" a role which requires quite a range in visual expressions for the usually Stone Faced comedian. Fatty, meanwhile, plays in one of his standard adultery roles where he all too often wanders off the marriage path seeking variety. As a doctor, Roscoe is extra friendly to one particular female patient, who, with her husband, turn the tables to heist one of the doctor wife's prized necklaces. Arbuckle's disguise as a policeman to reclaim the necklace causes a great amount of on-screen amusement.

This is yet another Roscoe Arbuckle/Buster Keaton short I watched on the DVD collection of the best of Arbuckle/Keaton. In this one, Arbuckle is married with Buster playing his obnoxious son. Perhaps because I knew this was a slapstick comedy with Keaton being an expert at acrobatics, I laughed every time Arbuckle shoved his "son" upside his head with the result of Buster constantly wailing! Buster also laughs at such inappropriate places as when the horse at the racetrack Roscoe secretly bets on keeps running in circles! Plot-which also has Arbuckle flirting with another woman unbeknownst to his wife-gets confusing at times but whenever he and Keaton do their stunts, the short provides some decent laughs. So on that note, Oh Doctor! is worth a look.

A rare opportunity to see the great Stoneface Buster Keaton bawling like a kid as the put-upon son of Doctor Roscoe Arbuckle is the only reason to visit this otherwise below-par comedy. Arbuckle's character is the kind of perfidious bully possessing no redeeming features that would be the villain in most films, and yet he receives no kind of come-uppance. This might have been forgivable if the humour was of a high standard, but there is very little here to raise even a smile.