Back Stage
About Back Stage
Fatty, Buster Keaton, and Al St. John are stagehands. Fatty posts a door sign for the star Gertrude McSkinny and leaves the door open, so the board seems to promise that Miss Skinny will undress at 2. A strongman bullies his assistant, played by Molly Malone; the crew gets him to try a lift and then electrocutes him. He quits and takes the dancer with him, and the stagehands and the assistant throw together an operetta called The Falling Reign, with Fatty and Keaton in drag. A dropped snow bag and a falling house-front wreck the number, the audience laughs, and the strongman shoots the assistant before Fatty drops a trunk of weights on him. The short ends at her hospital bed.
Cast & crew
More about Back Stage
Joseph M. Schenck produced and presented the two-reeler. Jean Havez is the writer named by Wikipedia. Famous Players-Lasky copyrighted it on 20 August 1919 (LP14114) and released it through Paramount on 7 September 1919 as a Paramount-Arbuckle Comedy. Silent Era says it was shot at the Comique studio in Edendale and that the release prints were color-tinted.
Themes
Look
Elgin Lessley photographed the short. Silent Era records that the release prints were color-tinted.
Music
Silent, with English intertitles.
Preservation
Silent Era lists a 35mm positive in the Cohen Media Group holdings (Raymond Rohauer collection). The film is in the public domain in the United States. A copy on the Wikipedia article runs 21 minutes 6 seconds.
Notes
- Charles A. Post plays the strongman. John Coogan, Jackie Coogan’s father, plays the eccentric dancer.
- Silent Era calls this Keaton’s first film with Arbuckle after Keaton’s war service.
- The emergency show is titled The Falling Reign. Keaton dances in drag, including butterflies and no-handed cartwheels.
- A house-front falls toward Arbuckle and the open window passes around his body. Keaton reused that gag in One Week (1920) and Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928).
- Moving Picture World’s 20 December 1919 note calls it a burlesque of stage life in which Roscoe and Buster dance together.
Scenes
- The open door turns the Gertrude McSkinny sign into a promise that Miss Skinny will undress at 2.
- The crew electrocutes the strongman after daring him to lift a weight.
- A house-front falls on Arbuckle and the window opening saves him; a whole bag of stage snow then lands on him.
Influenced
- One Week (1920) — Keaton reuses the falling-wall gag
- Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928) — the same window-in-the-facade gag
Also available
- Internet Archive (Backstage_928)
- Wikimedia Commons (Back Stage (1919).webm)
- Kino Video DVD, Arbuckle & Keaton, Volume Two (2001)
