Those Country Kids (USA, 1914)

Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle and Al St. John (who were respectively uncle and nephew in real life) play two rivals in this in this one-reeler film for the affection of their sweetheart (played by actress Mabel Normand). In the beginning of the film, Mabel is at home and she sees Arbuckle on the fence and goes outside to meet him. They both hug and start talking. After a short time they start arguing but soon reconcile. Mabel’s father sees her talking to Arbuckle, gets furious and goes outside carrying a gun. The father does not actually shoot, but ends up literally kicking Arbuckle out and prohibiting Mabel to ever talk to him again. Right afterwards Arbuckle uses a slingshot to take revenge on Mabel’s father, who wastes no time to shoot back on Arbuckle’s butt. Mabel protests, to no avail.

Then an intertitle announces Mr. Reddy (played by Al St John), another suitor of Mabel, who arrives on horseback. He was very much interested in Mabel, but it was unrequited Mabel because she does not feel the same. Arbuckle sees Mr. Reddy around his girl and gets disgusted and, to make things worse, Mr. Reddy tries to kiss Mabel without her consent. Something has to be done and Arbuckle immediately separated Mabel from the unwanted advances of the other suit. She rewarded the kindness by kissing Arbuckle, who was the man she really loved. Both man start to fight and Mabel takes some distance in fear but it was such big chaos that she ended up being accidentally hit anyway.

Arbuckle retaliates by throwing bricks on his opponent. The situation escalates when a brick is throw towards the house, crosses the window and ends up hitting Mabel’s father by accident. As he was still holding his gun, the gun was also inadvertently shot, which scared all other family members who were at home and unaware of the situation. Mabel’s father got furious again and threw water out of the window and wet somebody else by the mistake. Meanwhile, the fighting between both suitors of Mabel was still going on outside. Mr. Reddy sits on a water well, but Arbuckle hit him with a brick, which made Mr. Reddy falling inside the well. Arbuckle and Mabel try to rescue Mr. Reddy, who was drowning.

Mabel returns home to ask for help and returns with some of her male relatives. In the middle of all mess, Mabel’s mother calls the Sheriff’s Office. The other policemen in the office were sleeping and the sheriff had to wake them up by shooting his own gun to the air. Then the incompetent Keystone Cops come to the rescue. Mr. Reddy is finally rescued and Arbuckle and Mabel try to go away in the middle of confusion, but her relatives realize it and they are chased by everyone – even the Keystone Cops. Fortunately traffic jams were not really a problem back to the 1910s. After this chaotic chase, Mabel and Arbuckle get to arrive in a house, where they meet a clergyman and get married. Much to Mabel’s family annoyance, it was too late to prevent anything and they were already officially married.

Despite having an extremely simple plot, this film is still entertaining with gags easy to understand and as a historical witness of the lifestyle of such long time ago, especially clothing, urbanization and different pace of family life. It is a film to sit down and watching, without questioning any absurdity that the audiences might seem on screen and we all frequently need a film to make us forget about day-to-day problems and just laugh. Recommended cute little film.

Mabel's New Hero (USA, 1913)

Keystone Studios (which was opened in September 1912) is remembered by Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, Charlie Chaplin, Ford Sterling and many of it's great comedians but also of Bathing Beauties, which was a group of beautiful women in bathing suits and carefree antics, always so lively and happy, who joined the action with the comedians in order to arise more interest in the audiences.

In this one-reeler film (which means it is circa 11 minutes long), Arbuckle visit Mabel at home and bring her some flowers while two other women listened to that behind a door. Mabel is not very flattered by the attention of Arbuckle and take him by the ear and kick him out of her house. Mabel enter the room where the other two women were and catch them both spying on her. Arbuckle returned to the house, opened the door and entered the room where the three women were. He bring flowers again and seemed very determined to win Mabel’s affection. 

Then we see on the street a fellow called called “Handsome Harry”, a “Divil” among the women, according to an intertitle. He seem to be a mix of a Don Juan and an unpleasant womanizer and has the typical villain look.

The bedroom is shown again, the two women leave and Mabel and Arbuckle are alone. Mabel is furious and slap Arbuckle but fortunately they reconcile a short time later. Meanwhile, the other two women meet “Handsome Harry” on the street, apparently by chance. They go swimming and “Handsome Harry” follow them. Mabel and Arbuckle go to the same place and also bump into “Handsome Harry”, who start watching Mabel from a distance. Both Arbuckle and Mabel exchange clothes to put on swimming suits. When Arbuckle leave his dressing room to meet Mabel he realize what “Handsome Harry” was doing, tell to Mabel about what was going on and both men start fighting. The other two women also returned from their dressing rooms and “Handsome Harry” followed them.

On the beach “Handsome Harry” make advances on the two women, who promptly beat him up. While it happen there is another confusion, as another man made advances on Mabel and Arbuckle beat him up to defend her. When Mabel is a bit away from Arbuckle, “Handsome Harry” approach her and bully her and Mabel also beat him up. Arbuckle run to Mabel and is involved in another fight to defend her. Mabel run away and find the other two women and a policeman on the beach. The policeman try to  prevent both man from fighting but end up being hit instead.

Afterwards, for any crazy reason, Mabel is in a balloon (Yes, it makes no sense why) and “Handsome Harry” untie the rope of the balloon, making it fly away too early and Mabel is terrorized. Arbuckle get to find a telephone and call the police. The Keystone Cops, with their usual degree of incompetence, quickly arrive in the scene while Mabel struggle inside the balloon. Arbuckle and the policemen get to bring the balloon a bit down so Mabel could slide through the rope in safety and she meet everyone upon her return to the soil. The film finish with Mabel and Arbuckle embracing after all the mess.

This is one of the very simply short films made in the first years of Keystone Studios. The plot remain easy to be understood by audiences and entertaining. The frantic, lively and good acting of actors is captivating regardless of era and the sample of 1910s swimming suits provide a unique historical witnesses of an era that has been gone long ago. Both Roscoe Arbuckle and Mabel Normand had short-lived careers and were caught in real life in controversies beyond their control but it is easy to understand why both actors were so popular in their own era. They were really good comedians.