From Amazon.com
A long-lost two-reel comedy starring and directed by Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle and costarring Buster Keaton,
The Cook (1918) has been reclaimed from nitrate materials found in Norway and Denmark in 1998-99. A few seconds' worth of footage remains lost, but the minor burps in continuity can't dim the two comic geniuses' balletic precision and freewheeling inventiveness. Keaton, new to the flickers, is more devil-may-care than in his own films, but the careening dynamism perfected in two decades of vaudeville knockabout is fully in play. Arbuckle's trademark fat is 95 percent muscle, and his no-sweat juggling rivals W.C. Fields'--though the image viewers will carry to their graves is his kitchen-pan
jeu d'esprit as Cleopatra, clutching a link-sausage asp to "her" bosom. All this--plus a ladder-climbing dog named Luke!--makes for a comedic tour de force. Milestone has filled out the package with another Arbuckle rediscovery,
A Reckless Romeo (1917), and Harold Lloyd's characteristically zippy
Number Please! (1920)--all three shot on glorious amusement-pier locations.
--Richard T. Jameson
Video Details
At the Bull Pup Cafe, Fatty Arbuckle is chef of all trades while Buster Keaton waits tables in own inimitable fashion. When a tough guy annoys the pretty cashier, Keaton comes to her defense with help from Luke the Dog, feisty canine defender of womanhood! One of the finest and funniest of these comedians' collaborations, "The Cook" was long considered one of cinema's lost holy grails until its discovery in 1998 among a cache of undentified nitrate prints at the Norsk Filminstitutt, followed by the discovery of even more footage in 2002 at the Nederlands Filmmuseum! This new edition combines the sources to approximate the original U.S. release of this comic milestone. Also included is "A Reckless Romeo," a legendary lost film also recovered. Arbuckle is at the height of his comedic talents as an adventurous young husband exploring greener pastures, but his attempts at indiscretion at the Palisades Amusement Park are filmed by a newsreel cameraman and shown at the local movie house with both philanderers' nearest and dearest in attendance! Arbuckle's "escape" is one of the most memorable endings of any cinematic comedy.
