Arbuckle features

Rodney · Post by **Rodney** » Fri Aug 28, 2015 3:15 pm

Not sure why it hasn't shown up here, but Paul Gierucki posted this on his FaceBook account earlier this week.

I have officially been cleared to reveal the top secret project that has been going on for the last few months! We have been collaborating with Paramount Pictures, Turner Entertainment, and the Library of Congress, to reconstruct, restore, and release Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle's long unavailable feature length films -- THE ROUND UP (1920), THE LIFE OF THE PARTY (1920), and LEAP YEAR (1921), as part of CineMuseum, LLC's new ARBUCKLE ANTHOLOGY. The best 35mm preservation elements for these films are currently being scanned in 4K, undergoing careful reconstruction and a very gentle clean up. The features, and other exciting discoveries, will sport brand new scores from the ever popular Donald Sosin, Dennis Scott, and Rodney Sauer. I could not possibly be more excited. I am deeply indebted to the other producers of this project Brittany Jane Valente, Lisa Tatge, Steve Stanchfield, David B. Pearson, Brent Walker, and Richard M. Roberts, to the wonderful people at the Paramount Archives, the great staff at TCM, particularly the amazing Charlie Tabesh, the fine folks at LOC, Mike Mashon, Rob Stone, our IndieGoGo supporters, and so many others. This new DVD / Blu-ray collection, particularly the first sanctioned home video release of these wonderful films, is the culmination of an extraordinary amount of work, organization, and tremendous generosity on the part of many, many people. For me, it is a dream come true. No release date yet, the work is ongoing, but you will be able to catch some sneak previews at Cinecon, the annual Buster Keaton Society gathering, and on TCM in October. More details here as they are available. Thanks again to everyone involved in this project, anyone that I might have missed, and everyone else for being so patient while we continue jumping through hoops. Thank you.

Gagman 66 · Post by **Gagman 66** » Fri Aug 28, 2015 3:30 pm

Rodney,

I tried to ad this twice last night and it wouldn't post for some reason. Very exciting news! Only wish we could get a project like this for Colleen Moore going. Here are two beautiful frame captures Paul posted from THE ROUNDUP!

boblipton · Post by **boblipton** » Fri Aug 28, 2015 3:32 pm

The LoC print of The Round-Up is one of the most beautiful prints of a film from the era I have ever seen. And it's a fine movie, even if it does have about fifty-eight plots going on.

Bob

JFK · Post by **JFK** » Fri Aug 28, 2015 5:31 pm

Crazy to Marry- if the image in the above trade ad can be believed- would be of special interest to today's fans,
as it looks like the only pairing of Arbuckle and Vin Diesel

Bor Enots · Post by **Bor Enots** » Fri Aug 28, 2015 6:12 pm

Sure hope the "bug" on the lower right isn't on the film themselves.

Rodney · Post by **Rodney** » Fri Aug 28, 2015 6:35 pm

Gagman 66 wrote:Only wish we could get a project like this for Colleen Moore going.

I'm sure that the fact that Colleen Moore's films are all under copyright, and that Arbuckle's all are not, has something to do with this...

Paul E. Gierucki · Post by **Paul E. Gierucki** » Fri Aug 28, 2015 8:32 pm

The bug is there solely for the FB groups that repost without attribution, Rob. Everything will be clean / bug-free.

PG

Smari1989 · Post by **Smari1989** » Sat Aug 29, 2015 5:01 am

These are fabulous news. I am looking very much forward to the release-date. Except for LEAP YEAR, I can't imagine that Arbuckle's Paramount-features have been seen by a wider public since the early 1920s.

Michael Arlt · Post by **Michael Arlt** » Sat Aug 29, 2015 7:50 pm

Leap Year was on the "Lost Films" set that came out years ago, is there any new footage added for this set?

I would love to seen "Brewster's Millions" but unfortunately it's lost.

Smari1989 · Post by **Smari1989** » Sun Aug 30, 2015 2:35 am

Smari1989 wrote:These are fabulous news. I am looking very much forward to the release-date. Except for LEAP YEAR, I can't imagine that Arbuckle's Paramount-features have been seen by a wider public since the early 1920s.

Correcting myself... Of course, THE ROUND-UP has been screened on festivals and the like in more recent years. Still, I and most silent comedy-fans have yet to see it.

I know practically nothing about LIFE OF THE PARTY, and just assumed it was completely lost. Glad it's not, despite the rather bitterly ironic title.

martin arias · Post by **martin arias** » Sun Aug 30, 2015 6:26 am

Yes, besides those two features preserved in Belgium and Russia (GASOLINE GUS and CRAZY TO MARRY, I'd love to watch the short CAMPING OUT (1919)

According to Wikipedia,

Camping Out is a 1919 American short comedy film directed by and starring Fatty Arbuckle.[1] The two-reel film was considered lost until recently. Most of the film has been reconstructed from reels found in the Nederlands Filmmuseum and Cineteca Nazionale storage vaults in Rome in 2002.[2]

As far as I know it has not been released on DVD yet.

Other probably interesting shorts, which I don't know it are extant somewhere, are

A Creampuff Romance 1916
Bright Lights 1916
His Wife's Mistakes 1916
The Other Man 1916

the three well known shorts from that year (FATTY AND MABEL ADRIFT, HE DID AND HE DIDN'T, and THE WAITER'S BALL are excelent comedies).

m.

martin arias · Post by **martin arias** » Sun Aug 30, 2015 6:34 am

His Wife's Mistakes 1916 is here:

Wm. Charles Morrow · Post by **Wm. Charles Morrow** » Sun Aug 30, 2015 7:24 am

Smari1989 wrote:I know practically nothing about LIFE OF THE PARTY, and just assumed it was completely lost. Glad it's not, despite the rather bitterly ironic title.

While it isn’t among the best Arbuckle films I’ve seen, I’d have to say that the experience of viewing The Life of the Party was one of the most memorable movie-going experiences I’ve ever had. I saw it at a festival devoted to Arbuckle’s work at the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens NY, in the mid-1980s. The available print of this feature (from Library of Congress, I believe) had Czech intertitles, with no translation. So, while the film played, an elderly gent who understood the language sat by the projector with a microphone, and translated for us. There was no music, just his voice. At first he seemed a little self-conscious, and his translations were halting and awkward, but after a while he warmed to the task, relaxed and began to enjoy himself. He’d explain idioms and Czech puns, and when the title cards represented dialog he’d assume the voice of the speaker, and emote. It was great fun, and when it was over our translator, unexpectedly the star of the show, received a vigorous round of applause. I’ve never re-encountered the movie since that evening.

Can’t wait to see this new DVD set. I’m sure there’ll be lots of great stuff. The Round-Up is fascinating: a straight Western, with Roscoe in the kind of role usually played by William S. Hart. It works surprisingly well, certainly better than if Hart had taken the lead in, say, Leap Year.

Rodney · Post by **Rodney** » Sun Aug 30, 2015 8:30 am

JFK wrote:

Interesting that the plot synopsis of Crazy to Marry in this ad has Arbuckle, a surgeon, removing the "crime bump" on Bull Montana's skull. There was a similar "reverse-phrenology" plot point in Chaney's The Penalty (1920). Was this a well-known medical theory at the time, or just a weird idea in a Gouverneur Morris novel?

JFK · Post by **JFK** » Sun Aug 30, 2015 9:26 am

Rodney wrote:
Interesting that the plot synopsis of Crazy to Marry in this ad has Arbuckle, a surgeon, removing the "crime bump" on Bull Montana's skull. There was a similar "reverse-phrenology" plot point in Chaney's The Penalty (1920). Was this a well-known medical theory at the time, or just a weird idea in a Gouverneur Morris novel?

Two examples (below) of Phrenology searched at the Lantern
CLICK IMAGES FOR LARGER VERSIONS
Photoplay March 1917 ........................................Film Fun June 1926

..............

missdupont · Post by **missdupont** » Sun Aug 30, 2015 9:27 am

Phrenology was not just something dreamed up by Morris, but had been a popular theory since the 1700s.
http://www.victorianweb.org/science/phr ... intro.html" target="_blank

Post by **Mike Gebert** » Sun Aug 30, 2015 10:22 am

Interesting that the plot synopsis of Crazy to Marry in this ad has Arbuckle, a surgeon, removing the "crime bump" on Bull Montana's skull. There was a similar "reverse-phrenology" plot point in Chaney's The Penalty (1920). Was this a well-known medical theory at the time, or just a weird idea in a Gouverneur Morris novel?

It seems to have been a popular notion in pulp fiction, anyway— Doc Savage would operate on and cure criminals at his polar fortress of solitude, or something like that.

Smari1989 · Post by **Smari1989** » Sun Aug 30, 2015 10:51 am

Rodney wrote:
JFK wrote:

Interesting that the plot synopsis of Crazy to Marry in this ad has Arbuckle, a surgeon, removing the "crime bump" on Bull Montana's skull. There was a similar "reverse-phrenology" plot point in Chaney's The Penalty (1920). Was this a well-known medical theory at the time, or just a weird idea in a Gouverneur Morris novel?

I don't know the answer to this, but I wouldn't be the least bit surprised. You'd have to go no farther back in time than the early 1900s to find one Dr. Henry Cotton believing that mental illness could be cured by removing the teeth of a patient; supposedly, infections in teeth could cause mental illness. What's more, his theories were apparently received with enthusiasm and applause from other professionals around the world for at least a few decades.

Sorry for getting a bit much off topic here, but: I guess I'm not the only one who often find it rather bizarre to study the early 1900s. It seems so close to our own time in so many ways, with the emergence of movie stars, radio, airplanes and Dadaism, yet you'll stumble across people like Dr. Cotton who'll make you think this was still truly the middle ages. (Now, I know this is rather arrogant; crazy stuff is still happening in the world today, to put it mildly, also in mental hospitals. But still...a few slight improvements must be said to have happened.)

OK, sorry for that. Back to the Arbuckle Anthology!!

Steve Massa · Post by **Steve Massa** » Sun Aug 30, 2015 11:00 am

As mentioned CAMPING OUT was found and preserved by Eye Film in Amsterdam. Ron Magliozzi, Ben Model and I showed it in our 2006 Arbuckle retrospective at MoMA. A CREAMPUFF ROMANCE appears to have been shot but never released, and BRIGHT LIGHTS is lost (at the moment). There's about a minute clip of THE OTHER MAN that's turned up on nitrate.

There's a number of surviving rarities that still haven't gotten around - Russia's Gosfilmofond has the features CRAZY TO MARRY and GASOLINE GUS, and George Eastman House has THE TRAVELING SALESMAN. The second reel of his Sennett short FATTY AND THE BROADWAY STARS turned up at the Royal Library of Norway. They let Ben and I re-assemble the footage using material from the Herrick's Sennett Collection and it was screened in Pordenone and New York. There are more of his Sennett shorts at other archives, and I'm sure more will continue to resurface.

martin arias · Post by **martin arias** » Sun Aug 30, 2015 12:52 pm

hi Steve!

Is any of the materials you mention going to be issued in the planned new box set? CAMPING OUT, for instance, or any of the "russian" features, or TRAVELING SALESMAN

M.

Steve Massa · Post by **Steve Massa** » Sun Aug 30, 2015 2:45 pm

Martin - don't have any details as to what's on the set - you'll have to check with Paul G. for that. Don't think THE TRAVELING SALESMAN seems likely as last time I asked it hadn't been preserved yet.

Gumlegs · Post by **Gumlegs** » Sun Aug 30, 2015 6:22 pm

Rodney wrote:
JFK wrote:

Interesting that the plot synopsis of Crazy to Marry in this ad has Arbuckle, a surgeon, removing the "crime bump" on Bull Montana's skull. There was a similar "reverse-phrenology" plot point in Chaney's The Penalty (1920). Was this a well-known medical theory at the time, or just a weird idea in a Gouverneur Morris novel?

More of a crank theory, but yes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkNzQNVsw9I

goalieboy82 · Post by **goalieboy82** » Sun Aug 30, 2015 6:29 pm

never got into Fatty Arbuckle for some reason (mainly its because of the whole thing with Virginia Rappe something will never know the whole story).

Rodney · Post by **Rodney** » Sun Aug 30, 2015 8:26 pm

missdupont wrote:Phrenology was not just something dreamed up by Morris, but had been a popular theory since the 1700s.
http://www.victorianweb.org/science/phr ... intro.html" target="_blank" target="_blank

No, I didn't think he'd invented phrenology -- which, of course is the ancient idea that you can tell a person's personality by the bumps on his head. But Morris and Arbuckle's scriptwriter take the idea much farther, to what Terry Pratchett jokingly called '"reverse phrenology" -- that by changing the bumps on a person's head, you can change their personality. It's odd to me that this even-more-preposterous idea would show up in two movies.

Post by **Mike Gebert** » Sun Aug 30, 2015 8:29 pm

There are some ideas that stay in the movies just because they make life easy for screenwriters.

No, you cannot start a car by finding two wires hanging under the dash and touching them together.

Rodney · Post by **Rodney** » Sun Aug 30, 2015 8:37 pm

Mike Gebert wrote:There are some ideas that stay in the movies just because they make life easy for screenwriters.

No, you cannot start a car by finding two wires hanging under the dash and touching them together.

Seriously, I could actually do that with my first car! It was pretty basic. You could lock it up and hide the key, but given a pocket knife I could open it and get it started in under five minutes.

But your point stands.

Rick Lanham · Post by **Rick Lanham** » Sun Aug 30, 2015 9:06 pm

Mike Gebert wrote:There are some ideas that stay in the movies just because they make life easy for screenwriters.

No, you cannot start a car by finding two wires hanging under the dash and touching them together.

Well, but... When I was stationed in the Philippines, our local transportation was via "Jeepnees" (spelling?). These were modified/heavily decorated Jeeps left over from the war and they were our taxis. You paid as little as a dime for a local ride. One of the owners started his jeep by taking the bare end of an insulated wire and touching it to the bare metal of the steering column. The rest of the wire was wrapped around the column.

So... only one wire needed.

Rick

Rodney · Post by **Rodney** » Mon Aug 31, 2015 6:50 am

Rick Lanham wrote:
Mike Gebert wrote:There are some ideas that stay in the movies just because they make life easy for screenwriters.

No, you cannot start a car by finding two wires hanging under the dash and touching them together.
Well, but... When I was stationed in the Philippines, our local transportation was via "Jeepnees" (spelling?). These were modified/heavily decorated Jeeps left over from the war and they were our taxis. You paid as little as a dime for a local ride. One of the owners started his jeep by taking the bare end of an insulated wire and touching it to the bare metal of the steering column. The rest of the wire was wrapped around the column.

So... only one wire needed.

Rick

See? And Mike pointed out that in the movies, you need two wires. So you're still both right.

Smari1989 · Post by **Smari1989** » Mon Aug 31, 2015 9:20 am

QUOTE:

goalieboy82 wrote:never got into Fatty Arbuckle for some reason (mainly its because of the whole thing with Virginia Rappe something will never know the whole story).

Well, it depends on what one means by "the whole story." There may be some details here and there which are unknown to us; the scandal happened well over 90 years ago and everyone involved in it are since long gone. In any case, what's beyond doubt is that all serious research on the matter, both then and now, have brought us to the conclusion that Arbuckle was completely innocent, and that the hideous act he was accused of by a most unreliable "witness" (Maude Delmont) did in all probability not occur at all.

Whenever we watch a movie star, any movie star, we're watching someone who is likely to have done some less than stellar things in their lives, like most of us. Arbuckle probably did some unpleasant things in his life as well, on occasion; would be odd if he didn't, as he was human. However, I'd say we are as close as we can be to certain that he did NOT do what he was accused of by Maude Delmont, or anything else in that "category". So then, I suggest you give Roscoe's films a try; if you like silent comedy, chances are pretty good you'll enjoy him (especially his work in the period 1916-1919 or so).

martin arias · Post by **martin arias** » Mon Aug 31, 2015 9:31 am

I cannot agree more with the last post.

And Arbuckle's movies from that period contain more than pleasent moments!

M.

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