Underplayed Gems

Back Stage (1919)

Back Stage poster
Directed by
Roscoe Arbuckle
Genre
silent film
Country
United States
Runtime
26 min
Rated
NR
Rating
6.3 of 10 from 52 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
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The catalogue in 3D

The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

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How it feels

A group of stagehands tries to keep things running backstage at a theater full of eccentric performers. When the performers refuse to go on, the stagehands put on the show themselves, leading to chaotic physical comedy.

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What happens

Back Stage is a 1919 American two-reel silent comedy film directed by and starring Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle and featuring Buster Keaton and Al St. John. In this film, Keaton, Arbuckle, Al St. John, and others work back stage as stagehands in a playhouse trying to help out and, in some cases, stay away from the eccentric performers. When the performers rebel and refuse to do the show, the stagehands, along with Arbuckle's love interest (the assistant of one of the rebelling performers) perform in their stead—including Keaton doing butterflies and no-handed cartwheels in drag. Several Arbuckle shorts use sight gags that other comedians elaborated on in other films. In Back Stage, Arbuckle uses the falling wall sequence, where a piece of set falls on him but a window in the set piece allows him to escape being crushed. Keaton used this gag in his first short One Week (1920) and, most famously, in his 1928 film Steamboat Bill, Jr. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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