The Rough House

Housekeeping chaos for a well-off homeowner, his small cooking/cleaning staff and a visiting party of refined dinner guests with ulterior motives. As with most slapstick comedies of the day, it only takes a little nudge to transition from a sleepy ho-hum day around the house into a full-blown food fight with smoke in the air and a never-ending parade of head-over-heels pratfalls. This one spirals out of control in a hurry, with Fatty Arbuckle setting the bedroom ablaze before he's had his morning coffee and Buster Keaton flopping flat on his back twice in his first sixty seconds, then snowballs until Arbuckle is gleefully empying a gun into his own kitchen door while Keaton hurls butcher knives at the chef. Honestly, there's very little to _The Rough House_ beyond sight gags and ever-increasing stakes in a high rollers' game of physical one-upsmanship, but it's a riot when it's in the groove. Arbuckle and Keaton's brands of expressive comedy are compatible and complimentary, and their constant efforts to out-goof each other lead to increasingly rich rewards for the viewer. It doesn't mean much of anything, but it's a hilarious way to kill half an hour.