Oh Doctor! (1917)

Director:

Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle

Writers:

Jean C. Havez (story)
Joseph Anthony Roach (story)

Release Date:

30 September 1917 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Short

Plot:

Roscoe is a doctor who falls in love with a pretty woman whose boyfriend, in turn, falls in love with Roscoe's wife's jewelry.

Plot Keywords:

Doctor | Horse Race | Betting | Marital Discord | Fake Illness

Cast

Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle	...	Dr. Fatty Holepoke
Buster Keaton	...	Junior Holepoke
Al St. John	...	Gambler
Alice Mann	...	Vamp
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Alice Lake	...	Maid

Runtime:

USA:23 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Silent

Filming Locations:

Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA

Company:

Comique Film Company

Trivia:

Unique in that Buster Keaton, renowned as "The Great Stone Face", plays a highly emotional character (a child) who frequently cries and laughs.

In which Roscoe portrays a deeply dysfunctional doctor dad

Considered a missing film until quite recently, OH DOCTOR! marked the fifth collaboration between Roscoe Arbuckle and Buster Keaton. The surviving print apparently turned up in Norway, which might account for the somewhat awkward English in the re-translated dialog, but no matter; this is an exciting and fascinating find for silent comedy buffs, and an offbeat film in many respects. Not hilarious, but novel and highly enjoyable in its own way, and of course a real treat for fans of the two stars.

Those who've seen Arbuckle's other surviving Paramount "Comique" short comedies will notice right away that OH DOCTOR! is plot-driven to a degree unusual for this series. In some of the other films it seems as though the guys started shooting with only enough material for a one-reeler, then had to switch gears midway through and come up with a whole new storyline. (You find that in some of the Sennett comedies, too, often in the form of weird hybrid professions for the lead comic: barber/jailer, sheriff/photographer, etc.) But for OH DOCTOR! screenwriter Jean Havez provided a strong storyline, and while there may well have been some gags improvised along the way, director Arbuckle and his crew clearly stuck to the script for the most part. Most of the laughs derive not from slapstick or pratfalls-- although you'll find a fair amount of roughhouse here --but from the situation. OH DOCTOR! is basically a situation comedy with farcical overtones, and that alone makes it unusual among Arbuckle & Keaton's output from this early period together.

More striking still is Buster's anything-but-deadpan performance as Roscoe's obnoxious son. He wears a sort of modified Buster Brown outfit, and plays much younger than his actual age (only 21!) at the time the film was made. Although Buster can be glimpsed smiling, laughing and weeping in some of the other collaborations with Arbuckle, right up to THE GARAGE, their last film together, he really mugs up a storm in OH DOCTOR!, sobbing with particular enthusiasm in almost every scene. Then again, he has good reason to cry, for in "Dr. Holepoke" he has one mean daddy here. From the very first scene Roscoe is hostile to his son, deliberately sticking him with a pin, kicking him, pushing him over a table, etc. Sure, this is only a silent comedy from a simpler era, and maybe we're all too self-conscious about this stuff now, but we still wonder which came first: the kid's bratty behavior or Dad's slapping and punching?

Along these same lines it's notable that Roscoe Arbuckle chose to portray such unattractive characters on occasion, as he does here, and that audiences loved him anyway --up to a point, that is. In this film alone Roscoe is not only mean to his son, he's chilly towards his wife, flirts openly with a dark-eyed vamp at the race track (where he also brusquely snatches his wife's binoculars away), squanders his family's money on a losing horse, and even deliberately crashes his car into a crowd of pedestrians so he can distribute his business card among them. Then to top off his perfect day he gets tipsy with the race track vamp in her apartment, and, for the finale, steals cash from a bookie joint while impersonating a cop, stuffing wads of bills into his clothing. In the final shot, when Mrs. Holepoke kicks her husband, he kicks her back.

Well, despite all of the above, when this movie is over somehow we still like Roscoe Arbuckle. He was doggedly sympathetic, and even when his character acts like a jerk his own likability as a performer survives. Arbuckle had a star quality all his own, and it lasted until his luck ran out. But it's still apparent in OH DOCTOR!, and we can be grateful that this highly unusual and entertaining film has been rediscovered.