The Garage
About The Garage
Fatty and Buster work as mechanics and firemen in a garage that is also a fire house. The owner's daughter, Molly, turns down Jim, who wants to court her. Flowers he brings her end up soaked in motor oil. Jim pulls a false alarm so the two men race across town. Leaving, he starts a real fire. They come back. Molly is trapped. The hose leaks, and Fatty sits on it. A streetcar runs over the hose. They catch Molly in a life net. She bounces into the telephone wires. They get her down and then are stuck themselves. She moves a car under them as they fall, and the three drive off.
Cast & crew
More about The Garage
Roscoe Arbuckle directed and stars with Buster Keaton. Jean Havez wrote it. Elgin Lessley photographed it. Joseph M. Schenck produced it for Comique. Paramount released it on January 11, 1920. Wikipedia times it at 25 minutes. Wikidata says 22 minutes. It was also called Fire Chief. It is the fourteenth and last short starring Arbuckle and Keaton together, before Keaton opened his own studio and Arbuckle moved to features.
Themes
Making
Arbuckle and Keaton split the garage gags and the fire gags inside one two-reeler, with the false alarm turning into the real blaze.
Look
Elgin Lessley shot the garage, the hose, and the jump from the wires.
Preservation
A print is on Wikimedia Commons.
Notes
- Molly Malone plays the owner's daughter. Harry McCoy plays Jim. Dan Crimmins plays Rube, the garage owner. Luke the Dog is in it, as in other Arbuckle shorts.
- Alice Lake has been listed in an undetermined role, unconfirmed.
- The oil on the flowers is what starts Jim's grudge.
- The life net sends Molly into the telephone wires instead of to the ground.
Scenes
- Jim's flowers land in motor oil.
- Fatty sits on the leaking hose.
- Molly bounces out of the life net into the telephone wires.
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (The Garage (1920).webm)
