In this one reeler, Keystone studios remained faithful to his formula of a park (a perfect scenery to benefit from the sunny weather of California), some cops and a girl. But she was definitely not a delicate flower.
Mabel Normand, at the height of her youth and popularity, had another ground-breaking performance. And she was a rather innovative actress because, despite her beautiful and delicate looks, she was not only a “damsel in distress” or a cute woman in the scene only to give some “atmosphere”, but she was also a daredevil, both on screen and real life. She did a plenty of her own stunts in her films and was even an airplane driver in real life back to the 1910s.
Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle was already a known comedian, having started in films in 1913 at Keystone studios itself. Arbuckle still plays in this film the role of a baby-man, who was incapable of controlling his own impulses, which is a standard of a plenty of his early films at Keystone studios. This limited a lot his comedic potential and fortunately he abandoned such characters as time passed. Since this film is a one reeler and it was no required a deep psychological development of his character, his broad, unrealistic gestures and behavior are fortunately barely seen by the audiences.
Much has been said about the 1920s romantic comedies by Harold LLloyd, but the Normand x Arbuckle duo had already engaged in the genre in previous decade with successful results. Part of the excellent chemistry they had on the screen came from their close friendship in real life.
In this film, Mabel was out in an amusement park with her parents, but she felt bored and decided to have some fun without them. She ended up meeting two suitors (Arbuckle and Edgar Kennedy) and enjoyed the park with them in a mischievous, but innocent way. Then we can see one of the highlights of the film, which showed how a genuine amusement park was like back to the early XX century, and how much fun people seemed to have there.
Unfortunately -to the guys -they inadvertently had problems in the park with some people who happened to be Mabel’s parents. Needless to say, it was a ticklish situation when Mabel decided to introduce her new friends to her parents, who were not really happy to see their old antagonists again.
We can see some rough scenes for nowadays’ standards, especially where Arbuckle feeds a bear with a cone of ice cream and a rather ethnically insensitive scene where some balls are thrown on a man in blackface for sheer entertainment purposes. It is also a bit disturbing to see Mabel spanked by her parents for her misbehavior at the end of the film.
In addition to still being enjoyable, this film also provides us with an interesting historical witness of an old era. Amusement parks were still at their beginning (at least in the USA) and at the turn of XIX and XX the entertainment of middle classes in Northern hemisphere started to change greatly. Cinema itself was part of this change. Consequently, although this comedy is clearly outdated we can still laugh at some of its gags.
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