Topic: Good Night, Nurse! (1918) - Roscoe Arbuckle and Buster Keaton

[Paul Pain]

http://www.busterkeaton.com/Films/A10_Good_Night_Nurse.html

Watch GOOD NIGHT, NURSE! in the link above.

We are jumping the shark, as they say.  We have four shorts left, and none will be quite like this one.

One thing you have to give Roscoe is that he plays a good drunk.  The opening scene is the typical surreal scene of the 10s and 20s, but it just goes on for way too long.  By the time he gets the cigarette lit, I am well past this scene (did you see Buster in this scene?).

We have a lot of great pre-code stuff going on here: Roscoe kicking the lady [Buster], the comic depictions of insanity, the blood on Buster's clothes, etc.  Stuff like this is what makes watching these interesting, especially since many of these code-eliminated things are really quite harmless.

This short again harkens to Roscoe and Al St. John's Keystone Kop days with the behavior displayed by the orderlies as they chase Roscoe and Alice Lake.  Al is a bit underused here, but he fills himself in well; and Alice is, surprisingly, good.  And Buster gets to display the mannerisms we'd see him use in his solo films whilst attempting to flirt with girls.

The drag is that there is just so much in this short that isn't even funny.  There is a good 5 minute stretch starting with when Roscoe gets knocked out.  From there most of the humor is in his sane approach to lunacy and the amazing stunts he and Buster pull.  But it's drowned in poor writing.  And then we get cheap, thrown-together ending.

Forgot my rating... 8/10

[Umbrella Sam]

This is the other Arbuckle short that I would consider to be bad because of how dull it is. It starts off with a sequence of Arbuckle staggering around drunk that goes on for way too long. I've never found people staggering around drunk to be funny, no matter how overplayed it is, and this one feels way too dragged out. The same thing goes for the sequence where Arbuckle is dressed in drag and trying to flirt with Keaton as the doctor. The weak ending also does not help.

I'm having trouble finding out if there is anything redeeming about this short. There was one funny subtle joke in this short that I liked and that is when Arbuckle is in a hurry to get back in the hospital, yet still finds the time to wipe his feet on the mat. I guess I could also give it that the stunt work is also impressive to watch, although I think that applies for a lot of these shorts. Also, there isn't anything offensively bad that I noticed like the chloroform scene from HIS WEDDING NIGHT or the racial gags we've seen in other shorts. Otherwise, I have nothing to say.

On the bright side, in my opinion, this is the last bad Keaton film that we will be seeing for a long time.

3 out of 10

EDIT: Looking back, I do feel that my rating for this short was a bit too harsh. I still stand by most of what I’ve said, but as I mentioned, there’s nothing offensively bad about it and at worst it’s just kind of forgettable. I’ve been thinking about this for a while and have finally decided to up the rating for this by two points. It’s still not good, but I’ve seen worse.

Final Rating: 5 out of 10

[metaldams]

Will watch tomorrow or Friday and review, but my memories are I love the opening scene and think Arbuckle drunk is great, so I disagree with the consensus.  Arbuckle and Chaplin doing a rare teaming acting drunk and trying to upstage each other in THE ROUNDERS is classic stuff.

Will pitch in more detail soon, but I don't remember this one being quite as bad as you guys say.  We'll see.

[metaldams]

     I like this one.  Is it a perfect film?  No.  I agree with Paul the ending seems haphazard, but at the same time, the second half of the film makes more sense knowing it's a dream taking place in a sanitarium.  I think the opening scene is classic and lasts just fine in duration.  I love the rain soaked atmosphere of it all and just the old looking Mom and Pop store scenery.  I like this about silent comedies in general, just old scenery of more simple times.  The physical humor is funny, Arbuckle does some great falls.  I think the cigarette lighting gag is creative behind the umbrella, and I love Arbuckle writing an address on the drunk man and hanging him up so he can be delivered by the post office.  Most people say the woman in the scene is played by Buster and very well may be, but the high kick done by the woman character, as well as the guy in bandages and crutches outside the sanitarium, is a trademark of Buster's Dad, Joe Keaton, so there's a chance or one both characters might be Buster's Dad.  Either way, I certainly believe it's a Keaton.

      The rest of the short is basically one huge fever dream.  Not much else to say about it except I find the changing bizarre scenes quite fascinating and love some of the physical humor, like Arbuckle's sideways dive into the pool and the insane jump Keaton does on top of Arbuckle after Arbuckle wins the race.  A good short overall, but yeah, that ending is kind of sudden.  A few Stooge films are guilty of this too. 

9/10

[Paul Pain]

     I like this one.  Is it a perfect film?  No.  I agree with Paul the ending seems haphazard, but at the same time, the second half of the film makes more sense knowing it's a dream taking place in a sanitarium.  I think the opening scene is classic and lasts just fine in duration.  I love the rain soaked atmosphere of it all and just the old looking Mom and Pop store scenery.  I like this about silent comedies in general, just old scenery of more simple times.  The physical humor is funny, Arbuckle does some great falls.  I think the cigarette lighting gag is creative behind the umbrella, and I love Arbuckle writing an address on the drunk man and hanging him up so he can be delivered by the post office.  Most people say the woman in the scene is played by Buster and very well may be, but the high kick done by the woman character, as well as the guy in bandages and crutches outside the sanitarium, is a trademark of Buster's Dad, Joe Keaton, so there's a chance or one both characters might be Buster's Dad.  Either way, I certainly believe it's a Keaton.

      The rest of the short is basically one huge fever dream.  Not much else to say about it except I find the changing bizarre scenes quite fascinating and love some of the physical humor, like Arbuckle's sideways dive into the pool and the insane jump Keaton does on top of Arbuckle after Arbuckle wins the race.  A good short overall, but yeah, that ending is kind of sudden.  A few Stooge films are guilty of this too. 

9/10

To use one of your analogies, it's like that plate of bad Chinese food... awful, but necessary.