A Reckless Romeo

A Reckless Romeo
Film poster
Directed byRoscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle
Written byRoscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle
Joseph Anthony Roach
StarringRoscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle
CinematographyFrank D. Williams
Edited byHerbert Warren
Distributed byParamount Pictures
Release date
  • May 21, 1917 (1917-05-21)
Running time
23 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageSilent (English intertitles)

A Reckless Romeo is a 1917 American short silent comedy film directed by and starring Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle.

Plot

A philandering husband's public flirtation with a beautiful girl—and the resulting brawl with the woman's boyfriend—are captured by a newsreel cameraman. When the husband takes his wife and her mother out to the movies, the footage is shown on-screen. The husband tries to flee the theater, only to be spotted and leaped upon by the woman's boyfriend, treating viewers to two simultaneous fights between the same two men, both on-screen and in the aisle.

Cast

Production

The film was released by the Comique Film Corporation when it and many other early film studios in America's first motion picture industry were based in Fort Lee, New Jersey, at the beginning of the 20th century. Some shots were done at Palisades Amusement Park.[1][2][3]

The film was originally produced in New Jersey as one of Arbuckle's last Keystone pictures. Filmed between July and September 1916 and later sold to Paramount, it was released as a Comique film on May 21, 1917, after The Butcher Boy and before The Rough House.[4]

Preservation status

Thought to have been lost, a print was discovered in 1998 in the Norwegian Film Archive in an unmarked canister with another lost Arbuckle short, The Cook (1918).[5] The film archive at George Eastman House has a 35 mm positive print.[6]

See also

References

  1. ^ Koszarski, Richard (2004), Fort Lee: The Film Town, Rome, Italy: John Libbey Publishing -CIC srl, ISBN 0-86196-653-8
  2. ^ "Studios and Films". Fort Lee Film Commission. Archived from the original on April 5, 2011. Retrieved May 30, 2011.
  3. ^ Fort Lee Film Commission (2006), Fort Lee Birthplace of the Motion Picture Industry, Arcadia Publishing, ISBN 0-7385-4501-5
  4. ^ Neibaur, James L. (2007), Arbuckle and Keaton: Their 14 Film Collaborations, Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc, Publishers, ISBN 978-0-7864-2831-1
  5. ^ Susan King (February 17, 2003). "Restoring highlights of bygone eras". Los Angeles Times.
  6. ^ "Progressive Silent Film List: A Reckless Romeo". Silent Era. Archived from the original on December 4, 2009. Retrieved January 17, 2010.