The Butcher Boy

• Director: Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle
• AMG Rating:
• Genre: Comedy
• Movie Type: Workplace Comedy, Screwball Comedy
• Main Cast: Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, Al St. John, Buster Keaton, Josephine Stevens, Arthur Earle
• Release Year: 1917
• Country: US
• Run Time: 2rl minutes

Plot

The Butcher Boy is the first film that Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle made for his own production company after leaving Mack Sennett, and it's also the first time Buster Keaton ever appears on screen. Arbuckle plays a butcher boy working in a general store; Keaton is one of the customers. The two of them get an amazing amount of comic mileage out of a mere nickel's worth of molasses ... and they did it all in the first take. There's more to the film, of course -- Arbuckle performs some handy knife tricks and dons his usual drag gear when his honey Josephine Stevens gets shipped off to a girls' finishing school. But the real story here is the teaming of two of the greatest comics of the silent era. Arbuckle and Keaton look amazingly comfortable together for a first-time pairing. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Review

There is a tendency, as one reads of actors and directors who start their own production companies, to find missteps -- over-reaching or choosing subject matter that is too outre, over-spending, or otherwise breaking up the record of success that led to the independent production in the first place. The Butcher Boy is one notable exception -- Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle's first independent production, it showed the actor/director not only firing on all cylinders creatively, but in top form as a producer as well, for teaming himself up with a young Buster Keaton, the latter in his screen debut. The gags flow like water (even ones involving molasses), and it's even possible to see here as well the roots of an equally successful comedic set-up of a generation later, for the W. C. Fields vehicle It's A Gift. The pacing of the whole picture is a wonder, and it demonstrates overall precisely how prodigious a talent Arbuckle was in a multitude of areas. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Cast

• Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle

Al St. John; Buster Keaton; Josephine Stevens; Arthur Earle; Agnes Neilson; Joe Bordeaux; Luke the Dog

Credit

Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle - Director, Herbert Warren - Editor, Frank D. Williams - Cinematographer, Joseph M. Schenck - Producer, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle - Screen Story, Joe Roach - Screen Story