The Butcher Boy
About The Butcher Boy
Fatty, the butcher in a country store, wants Almondine, the manager's daughter. The clerk Alum wants her too, and a fight in the shop turns into flour bags, pies, and brooms. Fatty follows her to a girls' boarding school dressed as a female cousin. Alum gets in the same way, dressed as a student. After another fight the principal, Miss Teachem, hauls Fatty off to be punished, and Alum's friends try to kidnap Almondine. Fatty's dog Luke breaks that up. Fatty and Almondine run to a parsonage and get married. Later prints rename Almondine as Amanda and Alum as Slim Snavely.
Cast & crew
More about The Butcher Boy
The first Comique short. Roscoe Arbuckle wrote, directed, and starred. Joseph M. Schenck produced it for Famous Players-Lasky. Paramount released it on 23 April 1917. Frank D. Williams photographed it. Herbert Warren edited it. Buster Keaton makes his film debut. Alice Lake plays Almondine and Al St. John plays Alum.
Themes
Background
Paramount was selling Arbuckle's Comique comedies as a step up from the Keystone pace, still in two reels and still built on a chase and a fight.
Making
Schenck set Arbuckle up at Comique after he left Keystone. Keaton, then a vaudeville comic, walked into this first short and stayed for the series.
Look
Frank D. Williams shot the general-store flour fight and the boarding-school chase.
Music
Silent, with English intertitles.
Notes
- Buster Keaton's first appearance on film is in the store melee.
- Luke, Arbuckle's dog, stops the kidnapping.
- Agnes Neilson plays Miss Teachem. Joe Bordeaux is an accomplice.
- A reissue changes the sweetheart's name to Amanda and the clerk's name to Slim Snavely.
- It is a two-reeler. One catalog length is 24 minutes and the Wikipedia running time is 30 minutes.
Scenes
- Flour bags burst in the store and the fight disappears into the cloud.
- Fatty and Alum both arrive at the girls' school in dresses.
- Luke breaks up the kidnapping, and Fatty and Almondine head for the parsonage.
Also available
- Internet Archive (busterkeatonthebutcherboy)
