Coney Island
About Coney Island
Fatty's wife hauls him to Coney Island. He buries himself in the sand, slips away to the park, and joins his wife's old friend and a rival in chasing the same girl. Fatty frames the friend with a kick to a policeman, rides the log flume, and hides in a woman's clothes. The disguise fails. The men fight in the surf, the police lock them up, and Fatty shoves his wife into the cell before he and the friend swear off women and then chase the next ones who pass.
Cast & crew
More about Coney Island
Joseph M. Schenck produced the Comique two-reeler. Roscoe Arbuckle wrote and directed it. George Peters photographed it on the Coney Island grounds, and Herbert Warren edited it. Paramount released it on October 29, 1917. It was also called Fatty at Coney Island.
Themes
Background
By the mid-1920s the closing gag, in which Fatty panics after the woman he approaches is revealed to be Black, had been removed from most prints.
Look
George Peters filmed on location at Coney Island, including the Witching Waves and the Shoot-the-Chutes.
Preservation
A 35 mm print is held by George Eastman House.
Notes
- Agnes Neilson plays Fatty's wife, Al St. John her old friend, Buster Keaton the rival, and Alice Mann the girl.
- Luke the Dog appears, uncredited. Joe Bordeaux plays a sledgehammer man and a cop.
- The rides in the film include the Witching Waves and the Shoot-the-Chutes.
- The Chicago Board of Censors cut a shot of a girl raising her dress above the knee.
- An ending cut from most surviving prints has Fatty approach a well-dressed woman, see that she is Black, and run.
Scenes
- Fatty buries himself in the sand to escape his wife.
- He and Alice Mann fly off the log flume into the pool.
- Dressed as a woman, Fatty is courted on the beach until the rival exposes him.
Also available
- Internet Archive (ConeyIsland_17)
- George Eastman House
