Considering the popularity of Roscoe Arbuckle, I have been disappointed by the few features I've seen him in. Coney Island is an OK 2 reeler, filmed at Coney Island in 1917. That's the major point of interest: Coney Island. Blah story that makes little sense is a series of badly done pratfalls on dry land and in the sea. Arbuckle dresses up as a fat lady but this gag goes nowhere. Buster Keaton is his rival for the interest of Alice Mann. Keaton (very early in his film career) is OK; Mann has weird hair. Worst of all is the grotesque Al St. John, as a bow-legged and toothless goon. He overacts and is repulsive. Agnes Neilson plays the wife (so why is Fatty chasing Mann?) and looks like a youngish Maude Eburne. Along with the plot less story, what's missing here (compared to Chaplin's and Lloyd's films of the same era) is precision. Arbuckle's many pratfalls are obviously staged and even when he's supposed to be getting hit, it never really looks like it--he just reacts. Keaton fares better here but has little to do. Also, while Chaplin, Lloyd, and Keaton all developed personae that fit their styles of comedy, Arbuckle has little to offer other than being fat. His character has no personality. Based on this lack and his 1921 "feature," Leap Year, I doubt that Arbuckle would have had much of a starring career as the 1920s progressed and film audiences grew more sophisticated.
Review of Coney Island
