THE GARAGE (aka: FIRE CHIEF)

(director/writer: Fatty Arbuckle; screenwriter: story by Jean C. Havez; cinematographer: Elgin Lessley; editor: ; music: ; cast: Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle(Fatty – Mechanic / Fireman / Dog Catcher ), Buster Keaton(Buster-the assistant),Molly Malone (Rube’s daughter), Dan Crimmins (Rube-garage owner), Harry McCoy (The Dude); Runtime: 20; MPAA Rating: NR; producer: Joseph M. Schenck ; Paramount; 1920-silent)

“Enjoyable short silent comedy.”

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

Fatty Arbuckle (“The Iron Mule”/”The Hayseed”) directs this enjoyable short silent comedy. It’s the last time he teams with his pupil Buster Keaton.

Fatty and Buster are two bumblers operating as mechanics in a garage that is also a fire house, where they are firefighters. The pair wreck a car brought in for a cleaning. When a slick suitor (Harry McCoy) of the boss’s daughter Molly (Molly Malone) gives her roses, the boys get grease over it and ruin his chances with her. A mad dog nips off the pants of Buster, who while running away without pants tries fooling a cop by snipping off the kilt from a billboard promo for the Scot comedian Sir Harry Lauder and using that as his pants. It ends when there’s a false alarm by the suitor, who is in the building trying to get the boys out of the way so he can again court Molly. But he locks himself in the building and in a panic sets it on fire. With the firehouse burning down, the boys return in time to save Molly by holding a net as she jumps from her bedroom window.

REVIEWED ON 5/17/2017 GRADE: B