This early silent comedy with Arbuckle & Keaton is far more complex plot wise than you'd expect for a 1917 silent. It goes through an entire story with a whole lot of twists for a short film. While Keaton is not in character playing Fatty's son, he is still effective.
Arbuckle is a Doctor who takes his wife & son to the races and loses all his money by listening to a crooked horse touter give him a bad tip on a horse & bets & loses all his family fortune on the tip. He does not do this alone, as he is over hearing the touter swindling another party.
At the track, Fatty flirts with a woman & in the race scene is seated between his wife & the woman he is flirting with. Cheering on the horses, he grabs both women's legs. They both slap his hands away during the race.
Keaton appears to be here for abuse as the son. During the latter portion of the film, Fatty's wife's valuable necklace is stolen as he gives it to the mistress. There is a complex sequence in the mistress apartment where the necklace changes hands 3 times and both women hit the same guy over the head with a vase while trying to hit each other.
Fatty then dresses as a cop and manages to get the fortune back through a strange set of circumstances after he wins another horse bet. His wife gets the necklace back & they walk away from the camera, her with her necklace & him with the cash.
Arbuckle directs this quite well. This plot actually get reused in other films down the road though it would have been better if the tout had been stuck when the horse won the race, but that would come later.
Arbuckle is a Doctor who takes his wife & son to the races and loses all his money by listening to a crooked horse touter give him a bad tip on a horse & bets & loses all his family fortune on the tip. He does not do this alone, as he is over hearing the touter swindling another party.
At the track, Fatty flirts with a woman & in the race scene is seated between his wife & the woman he is flirting with. Cheering on the horses, he grabs both women's legs. They both slap his hands away during the race.
Keaton appears to be here for abuse as the son. During the latter portion of the film, Fatty's wife's valuable necklace is stolen as he gives it to the mistress. There is a complex sequence in the mistress apartment where the necklace changes hands 3 times and both women hit the same guy over the head with a vase while trying to hit each other.
Fatty then dresses as a cop and manages to get the fortune back through a strange set of circumstances after he wins another horse bet. His wife gets the necklace back & they walk away from the camera, her with her necklace & him with the cash.
Arbuckle directs this quite well. This plot actually get reused in other films down the road though it would have been better if the tout had been stuck when the horse won the race, but that would come later.