The Cook
About The Cook
At the Bull Pup, chef Roscoe Arbuckle and waiter Buster Keaton dance for the diners and break most of the plates. A holdup man, Al St. John, grabs waitress Alice Lake until Luke the dog runs him off. Arbuckle and Keaton eat one strand of spaghetti at a time, cutting it with scissors. Arbuckle then dances a Salome parody with a rope of sausages and a set of pots. Later the holdup man chases Lake off a roller coaster into the sea. Keaton's rescue rope pulls Arbuckle off the pier after him.
Cast & crew
More about The Cook
Arbuckle wrote and directed the two-reeler and plays the cook. Joseph M. Schenck produced it. Paramount released it on 15 September 1918. The company shot at The Pike amusement park and at the Balboa studio. The sausage dance spoofs Theda Bara's Salome, released the same year.
Themes
Making
For decades the short was treated as lost. In 1998 the Norwegian film archive found a damaged nitrate in an unmarked can, stored with A Reckless Romeo (1917). In 2002 the EYE Film Institute in the Netherlands added about 600 feet, roughly eight minutes. Scenes are still missing.
Preservation
Recovered from a 1998 Norwegian archive print and a 2002 EYE Film Institute print. The combined restoration is still missing scenes. It was issued on the DVD The Cook and Other Treasures.
Notes
- Luke the Dog, Arbuckle's own dog, chases the holdup man out of the restaurant.
- Glen Cavender is in the company. Keaton is billed in some copies as the assistant chef and in others as the waiter.
- A Library of Congress synopsis was used as the guide when the two incomplete prints were cut together.
Scenes
- Arbuckle dances with a string of sausages in place of Salome's veil.
- Keaton goes into the water still holding the rope, and drags the chef in.
Influenced by
- Salome (1918)
Also available
- Internet Archive (CASACLBusterKeatonTheCook)
- DVD The Cook and Other Treasures
