Synopsis
From 1913 to 1916, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle rose from the ranks of bit player to writer, director and star of comedies for Mack Sennett's Keystone Film Company. Because of Sennett's belief that actors were interchangeable, he lost Arbuckle to producer Joseph M. Schenck, who not only paid the comedian handsomely, but also permitted him complete creative control. To help in the new venture, Arbuckle recruited Buster Keaton, popular star of a knockabout vaudeville act; Keaton took a large pay cut to act in motion pictures, and Arbuckle welcomed his ideas and taught him all he knew about making movies. This volume of the DVD collection presents films that Arbuckle and Keaton made for Schenck between 1918 and 1919; they are presented chronologically so we can watch Buster grow from Arbuckle's bit player to his full partner. Following the 1921 scandal that was inflamed by a publicity-seeking prosecutor and the tabloid press, Arbuckle's films were withdrawn from circulation in America, and the negatives were not preserved. The films in this collection were gathered from international archives and private collections. The English intertitles are new, and except for Back Stage , derived from non-English sources. All the films are digitally mastered from 35mm, sometimes directly from the nitrate originals. VOLUME TWO INCLUDES: Good Night, Nurse (Jul. 1918) Back Stage (Aug. 1919) with Molly Malone, John Coogan The Hayseed (Oct. 1919) with Molly Malone, John Coogan The Garage (Dec. 1919) with Molly Malone, Harry McCoy and music by Robert Israel. Year: 1918-1919 Length: 85 minutes Director: Roscoe Arbuckle Starring: "Fatty" Arbuckle and Buster Keaton with Al St. John, Josephine Stephens, Alice Lake, Alice Mann Composer: Neil Brand Format: NTSC Produced for DVD by Serge Bromberg, Eric Lange, and David Shepard From the Blackhawk Films Collection Presented by Flicker Alley