The Bell Boy (1918) starring Fatty Arbuckle, Buster Keaton, Alice Lake
In The Bell Boy, two lazy bellboys (Fatty Arbuckle, Buster Keaton) fight for the attention of the lovely manicurist, and unintentionally thwart a bank robbery!
In short, The Bell Boy is a very funny silent short comedy! Fatty Arbuckle initially fights with Buster over the lovely new manicurist, come to work at the hotel. Their sparring is funny, as is the actual “work” that these two do!
- Fighting over who gets the tip for taking Cutie’s luggage to her room.
- Fighting over Cutie.
- A very funny segment where Fatty, as the barber for the hotel, is shaving a customer with a Rasputin-type beard – to look like Abe Lincoln, General Grant, and others!
- The horse-powered elevator … that has a “power outage”!
- And poor Buster gets his head stuck, and the rescue’s even worse!
At the hotel dance
After a carriage ride, Fatty has won Cutie’s heart. But, he wants to be a hero in her eyes. So, he asks Buster and Al St. John to pretend to rob the neighboring bank, and Fatty will stop them! But, real crooks have the same plan! And Buster is incredibly athletic in the fight!
Cast of characters
- Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle (Fatty and Mabel Adrift) as Bellboy, barber
- Buster Keaton (Cops; The Navigator) as Bellboy
- Al St. John (His Prehistoric Past) as Desk Clerk
- Alice Lake (Coney Island) as Cutie Cuticle, manicurist
- Joe Keaton (Convict 13) as Guest
- Charles Dudley as Guest
Leave a Reply