The Rough House

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jordan m This was pretty exhausting for a 20-minute short. The pace was absolutely frantic, partly from the framerate and the clipping done to restore the movie to watchable quality but they also just did not leave any breathing room between one gag and the next. Several of the action-comedy sequences were ingenious, like when the cook & delivery boy chase each other around a table where Roscoe's legs are in the way. I would've liked to see Jackie Chan remake this or use some of the segments in his movies as a lot of it is right up his alley. I will say that the joke quality kind of faded as the movie progressed and the newness wore off, but it's so brief that I didn't mind too much. Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 03/31/23 Full Review sean l Housekeeping chaos for a well-off homeowner, his small cooking/cleaning staff and a visiting party of refined dinner guests with ulterior motives. As with most slapstick comedies of the day, it only takes a little nudge to transition from a sleepy ho-hum day around the house into a full-blown food fight with smoke in the air and a never-ending parade of head-over-heels pratfalls. This one spirals out of control in a hurry, with Fatty Arbuckle setting the bedroom ablaze before he's had his morning coffee and Buster Keaton flopping flat on his back twice in his first sixty seconds, then snowballs until Arbuckle is gleefully empying a gun into his own kitchen door while Keaton hurls butcher knives at the chef. Honestly, there's very little to The Rough House beyond sight gags and ever-increasing stakes in a high rollers' game of physical one-upsmanship, but it's a riot when it's in the groove. Arbuckle and Keaton's brands of expressive comedy are compatible and complimentary, and their constant efforts to out-goof each other lead to increasingly rich rewards for the viewer. It doesn't mean much of anything, but it's a hilarious way to kill half an hour. Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 03/30/23 Full Review Read all reviews

The Rough House

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