''Moonshine'' is a 1918 American

two-reel A short film is a film with a low running time. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of not more than 40 minutes including all credits". Other film or ...

silent

comedy film The comedy film is a film genre that emphasizes humor. These films are designed to amuse audiences and make them laugh. Films in this genre typically have a happy ending, with dark comedy being an exception to this rule. Comedy is one of the o ...

directed by and starring

Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle Roscoe Conkling "Fatty" Arbuckle (; March 24, 1887 – June 29, 1933) was an American silent film actor, director, and screenwriter. He started at the Selig Polyscope Company and eventually moved to Keystone Studios, where he worked with Mabel ...

and featuring

Buster Keaton Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton (October 4, 1895 – February 1, 1966) was an American actor, comedian and filmmaker. He is best known for his silent films during the 1920s, in which he performed physical comedy and inventive stunts. He frequently ...

. The movie is available on

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

Plot

The setting is the Virginia Hills. Two revenue agents are tasked with hunting down bootleggers and bringing them to justice. The duo, aided by dozens of volunteers (all of whom somehow manage to fit inside Buster's small car), set off to track down the bootleggers. Fatty and Buster get separated from the group and take a tumble down a hill, which leaves their pants dirty. After Fatty washes Buster in a river and leaves him to dry hanging upside down in a tree, he meets Alice, the daughter of Jud Grew, the head bootlegger; they rapidly develop a romance. After fighting another bootlegger who is madly in love with Alice, Fatty reunites with Buster and the two stumble across the bootlegger's storage space, where they find a stash of illegal moonshine. Fatty is ambushed and taken away by the bootlegger, but Buster gets away and dispatches the love rival bootlegger by pushing him off a cliff. Fatty is taken back to the bootlegger's hideout, where, taking inspiration from

The Count of Monte Cristo ''The Count of Monte Cristo'' () is an adventure novel by the French writer Alexandre Dumas. It was serialised from 1844 to 1846, and published in book form in 1846. It is one of his most popular works, along with ''The Three Musketeers'' (184 ...

Alexandre Dumas Alexandre Dumas (born Alexandre Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie, 24 July 1802 – 5 December 1870), also known as Alexandre Dumas , was a French novelist and playwright. His works have been translated into many languages and he is one of the mos ...

, he escapes by pretending to be dead so that the bootleggers will throw him into the river. He floats downstream before swimming to shore, where he reunites with Buster. The two make a plan to rescue Alice and to take down the bootlegger but realize that their band of volunteers is nowhere to be found. The love rival bootlegger sneaks up on them, knocks out Buster, and with help from his fellow bootleggers takes Fatty to a cabin and lights the fuse to a bomb inside. The cabin explodes, but then reassembles itself (i.e., the same film is run backwards), and he emerges totally unharmed. Fatty takes out the love rival bootlegger by using a gun that he has modified so that it can shoot around corners, and Buster dispatches the remaining bootleggers, except for the leader. The leader proclaims that Fatty has proven himself worthy and gives him his blessing to marry Alice, but Fatty immediately refuses, revealing that he already has a wife. Buster agrees to marry Alice instead, and Fatty sets off down the hills towards his next adventure.

Cast

Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle Roscoe Conkling "Fatty" Arbuckle (; March 24, 1887 – June 29, 1933) was an American silent film actor, director, and screenwriter. He started at the Selig Polyscope Company and eventually moved to Keystone Studios, where he worked with Mabe ...

as Revenue Agent *

Al St. John Al St. John (also credited as Al Saint John and "Fuzzy" St. John; September 10, 1892 – January 21, 1963) was an early American motion-picture comedian. He was a nephew of silent film star Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, with whom he often performed o ...

as Mountain Man *

Alice Lake Alice Lake (September 12, 1895 – November 15, 1967) was an American film actress who began her career during the silent film era and often appeared in comedy shorts opposite Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle. Career Born in Brooklyn, New York, Lake beg ...

as Moonshiner's Daughter * Charles Dudley *

Joe Bordeaux Joe Bordeaux (March 9, 1886 – September 10, 1950) was an American film actor. He appeared in more than 70 films between 1914 and 1940. He was born in Pueblo, Colorado, and died in Los Angeles, California. Selected filmography * ''Mabel ...

(credited as Joe Bordeau)

Production

It was filmed at the

Balboa Amusement Producing Company The Balboa Amusement Producing Company (also known as Balboa Studios, and Balboa Feature Film Company) was a film production company in Long Beach, California, from 1913 to 1918 that produced more than 1000 films, around 90% of which have been ...

lot in Long Beach, California.

Historical significance

The film is one of the earliest (if not the earliest) to "break the

fourth wall The fourth wall is a performance dramatic convention, convention in which an invisible, imaginary wall separates actors from the audience. While the audience can see through this "wall", the convention assumes the actors act as if they cannot. ...

."Niebaur, Arbuckle and Keaton: Their 14 Film Collaborations, p. 95. For example, after Fatty upbraids the heroine and throws her into a river, she emerges and tells him, "I love you!" When her father says, "This is crazy!," Fatty explains, "Look, this is only a two-reeler. We don't have time to build up love scenes."

References

External links

*{{IMDb title, id=0009389, title=Moonshine
Moonshine
at the

International Buster Keaton Society The International Buster Keaton Society Inc.— a.k.a. "The Damfinos"—is the official educational organization dedicated to comedy film producer-director-writer-actor-stuntman Buster Keaton. Mission According to the Damfinos, their mission is "t ...

1918 films 1918 comedy films 1918 short films 1910s American films 1910s English-language films American black-and-white films English-language comedy short films Films directed by Roscoe Arbuckle Films with screenplays by Roscoe Arbuckle Paramount Pictures films Silent American comedy short films Surviving American silent films