cowboy pranks
by Douglas Messerli
No writer listed, Frederick A. Thomson
(director) Kitty and the Cowboys / 1911
The actor John Bunny began his career as a
stage actor, mostly in minstrel shows, but later in regular dramas; but when
Vitagraph built their vast new Brooklyn studio, the most advanced in the US,
Bunny appeared up announced for a job, and was hired on a temporary basis. He
was almost immediately recognized as a remarkable talent, the studio heads, J.
Stuart Blackton and Albert E. Smith, signing him onto a contract, regularly
increasing his salary.
In
the short period of Bunny’s film career, 1909-1915, the actor grew to be the
first great comedian of the silent films, known world round for his gentle
comedies in which he usually co-stared with Flora Finch, playing his wife. His
films came to be called “Bunnyfinches,” and his own name often appeared in the
title of the works in which he performed.
His
acting was physical, but not filled with pratfalls or excessive bodily
movements that other studios presented or would be popular soon after—he was,
after all, an extremely heavyset man. His comedy was truly silent; seldom did
he even attempt to pretend to speak. Rather he relied on his face and hands to
present a pantomime-like performance that many of his admirers learned from,
including the young Archibald Leach, Cary Grant. Some credit him with bringing
mime to screen performances.
For
those early years just before Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Leroy Arbuckle’s
great successes, Bunny ruled the film screen, speaking often for the
potentialities of film, even imagining that someday films would be a staple of
American schools offering up history, literature, the arts, and even science in
a manner that would interest the most bored of students.
At
the very top of his career, Bunny suddenly disappeared from the screen, going
on a long stage tour with a huge cast. Unfortunately, the musical extravaganza
was not a true success, and he was forced to put up vast sums of his own money
to continue the performances. When he returned to film he had already grown ill
with Bright’s disease and acted in only a handful of further films, leaving
only a small of money, $6,000, to his wife upon his death.
Although his vast numbers of admirers mourned the star’s death, within a
few years he had been forgotten, and over decades most of the hundreds of films
in which he acted were lost. It was not until this century that Bunny’s work
gradually came to be reassessed and his remarkable talents recognized.
In
Kitty and the Cowboys, Bunny plays Fatty, one of the good-natured
cowhands on a ranch where the cook is an Indian (Eagle Eye) upon who the
cowboys generally play mean and clearly racist jokes; but this group of
handsome young men apparently are ready to make sport of anyone unlike them,
and Fatty also is often the subject of their pranks. Generally, he takes it,
like the cook, good naturedly, but secretly he is seeking a way to get back at
them, and after one too many of their pranks he and his friend “Pink” (Robert
Gaillard)—the name hinting at a direction in which the film doesn’t entirely
take us—plot revenge on the others.
Fatty writes up a letter from an imaginary “twin sister,” Kitty who is
intent upon visiting her brother, accidentally allowing his cowboy friends to
pull it out of his hands as he reads the mail. The sex-starved men are
delighted at the possibility of a woman in their midst even for a few days, and
immediately plot wishful adventures around her arrival. When it turns out that
Fatty has to serve on jury duty the very day of his sister’s arrival, they’re
absolutely delighted since they will now be able to meet her at the railroad
station. But not trusting his friends, Fatty delegates Pink to meet her in his
absence, Pink hooking up the old sorrel heading off to meet her at the station
some
Meanwhile, on his way into town, Pink meets up with Fatty at an
abandoned shack where he delivers up a package of female attire and a wig
which, when Fatty slips into them, both agree is “a thing of beauty and joy
forever.” So heavy is Kitty, that Pink cannot even ride in the front seat with
her, but must rein the old horse from the back of the cart.
The men, nonetheless, are so unaccustomed to female society that,
despite her heavy girth, they treat her like a true beauty. When she gets a
taste of the current cook’s grub, Kitty is so disgusted that she promises them
she will become their cook, further adding to their delight just to have a
woman in their midst.
I
should add that whoever cast this Vitagraph cast of cowboys certainly had an
eye for male beauty. The majority of these boys, unlike any of the other shorts
of the period I’ve seen, are truly good looking, rendering their overwhelming
attraction to Kitty/Bunny even more humorous than it might have been if they
were simply a bunch of paunchy rubes.
Kitty makes biscuits “just like mother used to make,” and before they’ve
even bothered to wipe the butter from their lips the boys are each offering to
marry her, lining up one by one outside the kitchen to deliver up their
proposals. Each of them is invited in for an interview; but the minute they
enter, Pink and Fatty hit them over the head, relieve them of their guns,
hog-tie them, and throw them into the back room.
Nonetheless, like young calves led to slaughter, they each awkwardly
approach the female enchantress before receiving the surprise of their lives.
Eventually their Indian ex-cook spots them all spread across the floor
of the storeroom, lights a lantern to get a better look, and one by one,
awakens and unties them.
Seeking out the truth of what has happened, they too light lanterns and
pay a visit to the sleeping Kitty and Pink. Seeing them gathered around him,
Kitty pulls off her wig and undresses to reveal their old friend Fatty, having
won this round of endless pranks.
The only copy of the film remaining ends there, but evidently in the
original the boys award Fatty a good dunking in the horse trough.
Los Angeles, January 17, 2022
Reprinted from World Cinema Review (January
2022)
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