The Rough House

A gloriously chaotic early Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle short co-starring a young Buster Keaton in his first-ever screen appearance. Arbuckle plays a hapless husband terrorized by both his shrewish wife and his monstrous mother-in-law, whose attempts at domestic peace escalate into a full-scale kitchen demolition involving flying food, exploding stoves, and acrobatic mayhem. The film is primarily a vehicle for Arbuckle's remarkable physical agility — the man was an extraordinary athlete despite his size — but it's the debut of Keaton, deadpan and fearless at twenty-one, that gives it historical significance. Watch for the moment Arbuckle hurls a bag of flour into Keaton's face: the birth of one of cinema's greatest comic partnerships.