| A Reckless Romeo | |
|---|---|
 Film poster | |
| Directed by | Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle |
| Written by | Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle Joseph Anthony Roach |
| Starring | Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle |
| Cinematography | Frank D. Williams |
| Edited by | Herbert Warren |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 23 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | Silent (English intertitles) |
A Reckless Romeo is a 1917 American short silent comedy film directed by and starring Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle.
A philandering husband's public flirtation with a beautiful girl—and the resulting brawl with the woman's boyfriend—are captured by a newsreel cameraman. When the husband takes his wife and her mother out to the movies, the footage is shown on-screen. The husband tries to flee the theater, only to be spotted and leaped upon by the woman's boyfriend, treating viewers to two simultaneous fights between the same two men, both on-screen and in the aisle.
The film was released by the Comique Film Corporation when it and many other early film studios in America's first motion picture industry were based in Fort Lee, New Jersey, at the beginning of the 20th century. Some shots were done at Palisades Amusement Park. [1] [2] [3]
The film was originally produced in New Jersey as one of Arbuckle's last Keystone pictures. Filmed between July and September 1916 and later sold to Paramount, it was released as a Comique film on May 21, 1917, after The Butcher Boy and before The Rough House. [4]
Thought to have been lost, a print was discovered in 1998 in the Norwegian Film Archive in an unmarked canister with another lost Arbuckle short, The Cook (1918). [5] The film archive at George Eastman House has a 35 mm positive print. [6]
Roscoe Conkling "Fatty" Arbuckle was an American silent film actor, comedian, director, and screenwriter. He started at the Selig Polyscope Company and eventually moved to Keystone Studios, where he worked with Mabel Normand and Harold Lloyd as well as with his nephew, Al St. John. He also mentored Charlie Chaplin, Monty Banks and Bob Hope, and brought vaudeville star Buster Keaton into the movie business. Arbuckle was one of the most popular silent stars of the 1910s and one of the highest-paid actors in Hollywood, signing a contract in 1920 with Paramount Pictures for $1,000,000 a year.
1917 in film was a particularly fruitful year for the art form, and is often cited as one of the years in the decade which contributed to the medium the most, along with 1913. Secondarily the year saw a limited global embrace of narrative film-making and featured innovative techniques such as continuity cutting. Primarily, the year is an American landmark, as 1917 is the first year where the narrative and visual style is typified as "Classical Hollywood".
Theda Bara was an American silent film and stage actress.
The Selig Polyscope Company was an American motion picture company that was founded in 1896 by William Selig in Chicago. The company produced hundreds of early, widely distributed commercial moving pictures, including the first films starring Tom Mix, Harold Lloyd, Colleen Moore, and Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle. Selig Polyscope also established Southern California's first permanent movie studio, in the historic Edendale district of Los Angeles. Ending film production in 1918, the business, based on its film production animals, became an animal and prop supplier to other studios and a zoo and amusement park attraction in East Los Angeles until the Great Depression in the 1930s. In 1947, William Selig and several other early movie producers and directors shared a special Academy Honorary Award to acknowledge their role in building the film industry.
Al St. John was an early American motion-picture comedian. He was a nephew of silent film star Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, with whom he often performed on screen. St. John was employed by Mack Sennett and also worked with many other leading players such as Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Mabel Normand. His film career successfully transitioned from the silent era into sound, and by the late 1930s and 1940s he was working predominantly in Westerns, often portraying the scruffy comedy-relief character "Fuzzy Q. Jones". Among his notable performances in that role are in the "Billy the Kid" series of films released by the Producers Releasing Corporation from 1940 to 1946 and in that company's "Lone Rider" series from 1941 to 1943.
Alice Lake was an American film actress. She began her career during the silent film era and often appeared in comedy shorts opposite Roscoe Arbuckle.
The Butcher Boy is a 1917 American two-reel silent comedy film written by, directed by, and starring Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle and featuring Al St. John, Buster Keaton and Alice Lake. This was the first in Arbuckle's series of films with the Comique Film Corporation, and Keaton's film debut.
These are the films of the American silent film actor, comedian, director, and screenwriter Roscoe Arbuckle. Films marked with a diamond (♦) were directed by and featured Arbuckle. He used the name William Goodrich on the films he directed from 1924 onward.
The Cook is a 1918 American two-reel silent comedy film written by, directed by, and starring Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle and featuring Buster Keaton and Al St. John. The movie is a slapstick comedy and focuses on goings-on at a high-end restaurant with Arbuckle as the Cook and Keaton as the Waiter.
Camille is a 1917 American silent film based on the play adaptation of La Dame aux Camélias by Alexandre Dumas, fils, first published in French as a novel in 1848 and as a play in 1852. Adapted for the screen by Adrian Johnson, Camille was directed by J. Gordon Edwards and starred Theda Bara as Camille and Albert Roscoe as her lover, Armand.
He Did and He Didn't is a 1916 American short comedy film starring Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle and Mabel Normand.
Fatty and Mabel at the San Diego Exposition is a 1915 American silent black-and-white short comedy film, directed by Fatty Arbuckle and starring Arbuckle and Mabel Normand. It was produced by Keystone Studios.
The Other Man is a 1916 short comedy film starring Fatty Arbuckle. The film was shot in Fort Lee, New Jersey.
Minnie Devereaux (1869–1923) was an American silent film actress. She was a member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes in Oklahoma. More commonly known as "Minnie Provost" and occasionally "Indian Minnie," or "Minnie Ha-Ha," she held at least 14 roles, beginning in 1913 with Old Mammy’s Secret Code and ending with the 1923 release of The Girl of the Golden West. A few sources say she was a Cheyenne and the daughter of a Chief Plenty Horses. However, her father is often confused with Plenty Horses who was Lakota and born the same year as Minnie. In a 1917 interview published in the Mack Sennett Weekly Provost states that she was born to Cheyenne parents who fled G. A. Custer's Army during the Battle of the Little Bighorn, an event that took place when she was eight years old.
Elgin Lessley was an American hand-crank cameraman of the silent film era—a period of filmmaking when virtually all special effects work had to be produced inside the camera during filming. Though Lessley worked earlier with Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, and later with Harry Langdon, he is best known for the groundbreaking effects he produced with Buster Keaton, who dubbed him "the human metronome" for his ability to crank consistently at any requested speed.
Frank D. Williams was a pioneering cinematographer who was active in the early days of the motion picture industry. He developed and patented the traveling matte shot.
Alice Mann was an American silent film actress.
Luke the Dog (1913–1926) was a Staffordshire Terrier that performed as a recurring character in American silent comedy shorts between 1914 and 1920. He was also the personal pet of actress Minta Durfee and her husband, the comedian and director Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle.
Louis Anger was an American vaudeville performer and movie studio executive. During the early days of the American silent film industry, Anger was considered to be "the king of slapstick comedy producers," and was instrumental in developing the film careers of famed actors Fatty Arbuckle and Buster Keaton.
Corinne Parquet was an American actress who appeared in silent films with Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle.