This was the last of 14 comedy shorts featuring Roscoe(Fatty) Arbuckle and Buster Keaton, in 1917-20. Many regard it as the best in this series. I don't find it all that different. It takes place mostly in a garage or service station, which also functions as a firehouse. It begins with some basic slapstick. Roscoe and Keaton are flinging wet things, including a cream pie, at each other, in the garage. Roscoe is cleaning a car, polishing a window, then sticks his head through the window. Buster rolls a big tire that misses Roscoe, but hits the garage manager (Dan Crimmins)in the backside, pushing him in the large tub of water that he's using to detect a hole in the innertube. Roscoe and Keaton come over to help get him out, and soon they fall in too: Ruba Dub Dub, Three Men in a Tube!.....The owner of the car Roscoe has been cleaning shows up. Roscoe hurries to move the car to the revolving floor section, to give it a spin, as he hoses it off. The owner is satisfied. Another customer wants to rent a Ford, which promptly falls to pieces as soon as it gets out the door. Next, a suitor of Molly, daughter of the garage manager, arrives and she slides down the fire pole to greet him. Roscoe and Keaton move their work area to right behind the suitor. They get very messy as they grease the car. Eventually, they get some on the clean pants of the suitor, and on the bouquet of flowers he's hiding behind his back. When he pulls the flowers out, she smells them and gets black grease allover her face......After getting the suitor much more messy, they rub him with gasoline, then direct a large fan at him, as he rotates on the revolving floor section. He emerges nearly as good as when he arrived!.....A mad dog chases Keaton, who gets stuck between 2 boards of a fence. The dog locks his jaws on the seat of his pants, and rips them to shreds. I'll let you see what Keaton does in response.......The last section relates to the role of the garage as a firehouse. I will leave this for you to discover. It's quite amusing.......A general criticism I have is the overuse of pratfalls, sometimes one after the other. After so many, they cease to be amusing(for me, but perhaps some kids find the excess amusing). Roscoe had an endearing babyface, with large beautiful eyes, which I think was an important part of his appeal......See it at YouTube or commercial DVDs.
Review of The Garage
