I just finished watching "The Round-Up" and I must say this film really surprised me. As it was Fatty Arbuckle's first full-length movie, I expected that it would star him and it would be a comedy. Neither was the case!The film is set in the American west...in Arizona. Arbuckle plays the sheriff, Slim, but as I said, he's not the main character. The main story is about Dick and his friend, Jack. Dick is in the desert when he's attacked by renegade Indians led by Buck (Wallace Beery). They torture Dick to try to get information out of him but fortunately Dick is saved by the Mexican army. For months, Dick is convalescing, as he was on the brink of death. In the meantime, Jack and others from the town go looking for Dick and he's assumed to be dead. During this time, Jack falls in love with Dick's fiancé and they plan to marry.Shortly before the wedding, Jack receives a letter from Dick. Selfishly, Jack destroys the letter. Later, on the day of the wedding, Dick arrives in town--only to find his girl is about to marry! He gives Jack the $3000 he owes him and leaves...vowing never to return. However, when the baddie Buck robs the express office and kills the guy working there, suspicion turns towards Jack. After all, where did he just get all that money? Slim and the posse go looking for Jack. What's next? See the film and find out yourself.As a western, this is actually darned good for the time. The story is complicated but very interesting...as well as unique. And, the cinematography is exceptional--with a gorgeous setting. So, if you JUST go into the film looking for a nice western, it's a good bet. Arbuckle isn't bad in the film...but his part is clearly NOT comedic. And, the final line of the film will rip your guts out!!

As I have said often before, anyone who is a good cowboy is at the top of the movie profession. And Roscoe Arbuckle was a very good cowboy. Even if he was a sheriff, not a cowboy.He knew how to mount his horse and seemed to be a good rider.In fact, his acting was much better than would be expected by someone who knew only his knock-about and frequently hokey and silly comedies.(When TCM presented "The Round-Up" on 18 October 2015, it was followed immediately by another example of good acting in "Life of the Party," a probably unfortunate title considering his acting career was ended by an incident at a party in his hotel room in San Francisco shortly afterward.) All the actors, most of whom today are unknown, were excellent, and the directing included some great moving camera work."The Round-Up" is a wonderful surprise because Arbuckle, known entirely for comedy, played a (granted mild) dramatic role, but he pulled it off and reportedly audiences bought tickets.So, it's a western and I'd buy a ticket, but it's such a good role for and by Roscoe Arbuckle I'd buy another ticket to see it again. And I highly recommend "The Round-Up" both for what it is, a very well-done movie, and for what most people wouldn't expect, a very good (sort of) dramatic performance by Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle.

So Joe Schenck cut a great deal with Paramount to get Arbuckle into features. And as long as they were paying him an amazing sum of money, they gave him a role in this western until they could get a comedy vehicle ready for him. Paramount got its money's worth out of its stars by putting them in a LOT of movies.Roscoe is pretty good in a largely straight role here. It's a supporting role in the midst of eight or nine major plots, but built up a bit because Arbuckle is the biggest star here. He gets to do his signature cigarette-rolling gag. If you've never seen it, look for it.But what makes this movie a joy is that director George Melford was a great stylist and knew where to tell his cameramen to point the camera: keep the mountains in the picture, that's an amazing bunch of rocks, and so on. And, frankly, the print I saw, from the Library of Congress, is a wonderful print: plenty of silver in the print, no scratches and just enough granularity to make the stars shimmer. It's the most beautiful black-and-white print I've seen in at least 15 years. If you get a chance to see it, take it. When someone says "they don't make 'em like that anymore" sometimes they're referring to the actual piece of film.

After starring in a very successful and popular series of short comedies released by Paramount, 'The Round-Up' was Roscoe (Fatty) Arbuckle's first feature film. And it's a surprising choice ... because 'The Round-Up' is a straightforward Western, not a comedy. Arbuckle supplies a small amount of comedy relief -- he falls off a horse, and does his rolling-papers gag -- and Buster Keaton (unbilled) does one spectacular pratfall that's more astonishing than funny ... and that's it. This film is not a comedy; it's unlike anything Arbuckle had done previously, although he still retains his "Fatty" sobriquet in the opening credits.Paramount's decision to cast Roscoe Arbuckle in this vehicle may have been influenced by the fact that 'The Round-Up' had formerly been a popular stage play, starring the actor Maclyn Arbuckle ... no relation to Roscoe.I was horrified to discover that the title of this film refers to human beings. The critters being "rounded up" are Red Indians: 'renegades' who were supposed to get off this particular parcel of Arizona land because white men want it. Buck McKee (Wallace Beery) is scorned as a 'half-breed' -- half white, half Red Indian -- and everyone assumes that he's just automatically no good. As played brilliantly by Beery (surprisingly slim and virile at this point), McKee is indeed a rotten piece of work, guilty of murder and grand larceny ... but perhaps he turned evil because everyone treated him that way to begin with.I have a very low threshold for Westerns: I tend to enjoy the epics such as 'High Noon' but I tend to dislike the routine oaters. Matters are not helped in 'The Round-Up' by its dialogue: everyone speaks (in the intertitles) in that horrible cowpoke dialect, with generic situations expressed in cowhand metaphors. Two characters who want to marry are "aimin' to get hitched". Another character notes: "I'm powerful hungry. Can you rustle me some grub?" And nobody can just do something: they have to "reckon" they'll do it. The narrative intertitles are nearly as bad as the dialogue intertitles, with lots of sub-Zane Grey purple sage.Arbuckle, to his credit, gives a strong dramatic performance in the lead role. He's the sheriff, and because of his girth the local varmints regard him as a joke. Even his name suggests a punchline: Arbuckle's character is cried William Henry Harrison Hoover, nicknamed 'Slim'. And yet Slim Hoover repeatedly demonstrates that he can out-bluff, out-fight and out-shoot anyone who makes trouble. Arbuckle is absolutely and stunningly believable in this straight hero role.The real problem here is the script. There are something like eight different subplots, most of which are deeply uninteresting. For a Western, this movie has very little roping or riding or shooting. This film offers many spectacular desert vistas, but I suspect that some of these were glass shots or mattes rather than actual tableaux. Some of the landscapes in 'The Round-Up' resemble Monument Valley.Arbuckle brings a great deal of pathos to his character. Time and again, Slim Hoover has fallen in love with some woman who has moved into his frontier settlement, only to see some other man win her affection. The movie ends with massive Arbuckle heaving a massive sigh as he turns his back to the camera and comments rhetorically: 'Aw, what's the use. Nobody loves a fat man.''The Round-Up' was in release in 1921 when the scandal broke that destroyed Arbuckle's career, amid false rumours that he had raped an actress and caused her death. During a screening of 'The Round-Up' at the Maverick Theatre in Thermopollis, Wyoming, cowboys arrived on horseback and shot up the screen, declaring that Arbuckle wasn't "fittin'" to be allowed near American womanhood. They then seized the film from the production booth and burnt it in the street! This incident turned out to be a stunt cooked up by that cinema's manager, but the damage was done. Public opinion swiftly turned against Arbuckle. Nobody loves a fat man, indeed.I'll rate 'The Round-Up' 6 out of 10. I'm tempted to rate it higher, but that's probably just a pity vote for what happened to Arbuckle afterward.