His Wedding Night (1917)

US 17m, B&W, Silent
Director: Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle; Cast: Fatty Arbuckle, Al St. John, Buster Keaton, Alice Man, Jimmy Bryant, Josephine Stevens, Alice Lake, Natalie Talmadge

As a title, His Wedding Night has little to do with this short comedy which sees a case of mistaken identity leading to the near marriage of Fatty and Buster. As a soda jerk who works in his fiancee’s family store, Fatty defends his betrothed from a romantic rival and deals with a number of “problem” customers in a series of gags, though none compare to his run-in with a stubborn donkey. Aside from the dangerous donkey scene, the best laughs come with the arrival of Buster – the tumbling bicycling delivery boy-turned wedding dress model (Klaus Ming March 2016).

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