Reviews & Ratings for
Leap Year More at IMDbPro »

19 out of 21 people found the following review useful:
Roscoe swims to Japan, 1 March 2002
Author: F Gwynplaine MacIntyre from Minffordd, North Wales

"Leap Year", starring Roscoe Arbuckle, was never released ... as it was about to be shipped to distributors when the scandal broke that destroyed Arbuckle's career. Tragically, the film was banned in Britain and several other nations during the furore over Arbuckle's alleged crimes. (He was eventually acquitted on all charges, yet the ban remained in place.) This film has a large production budget, some splendid location shots, and a witty script. "Leap Year" is excellent proof that Arbuckle was a major film star before his career came crashing down.

In "Leap Year", Roscoe is a wealthy Californian who just can't help attracting gorgeous women, even though he has a "steady girl". Considering Arbuckle's unromantic physique, we have to wonder how much of this female interest is directed towards his bank balance. There's one surprising shot in this movie, in which a man (not Arbuckle) enters a house through the bathroom window. He is clearly shown stepping onto the toilet seat, and using the toilet as a step to reach the floor. Film historians usually cite "The Crowd" (1928) as the first Hollywood movie to show a toilet, but "Leap Year" got there sooner.

One funny sequence, in which Roscoe tries to swim to Japan with his clothes on, shows Arbuckle's agility in the water. He was a very graceful man, despite his bulk. I give "Leap Year" 7 points.

15 out of 16 people found the following review useful:
And Don't Call Me Fatty!, 14 June 2005

Author: ndimeo09 from United States

The negative review of this little seen movie must come from somebody who is a huge Virginia Rappe fan. Leap Year is by no stretch a comic masterpiece but it has it's share of belly laughs. I didn't find that there was much jumping up and down and grimacing in front of the camera in this picture. Arbuckle is a very agile man who could pull off some nice stunts with the best of 'em. The compromising situations Arbuckle's character finds himself in is what sets the tone for the hilarity that ensues in Leap Year. Aside from this movie being shown in 1921 it hadn't been shown until some 60 years later. The picture has a beautiful tint to it and is recommended to fans of silent comedy.

12 out of 12 people found the following review useful:
Enjoyable Comedy, & Something Of A Change-Of-Pace From Arbuckle, 6 December 2005
Author: Snow Leopard from Ohio

In itself, this is an enjoyable light comedy with a lot of energy. It also represented something of a change of pace from Roscoe Arbuckle, both in attempting to expand his style of comedy into a full-length feature, and in emphasizing comedy ideas involving relationships and situations over and above pure slapstick. It's quite unfortunate that his career was ruined even before this could be released, and in particular this shows the kinds of possibilities that could have been in his future.

The story premise is not a lot different in style from the setup to many of Arbuckle's one- and two-reel features, just a little more complex. Arbuckle plays nephew to Lucien Litttlefield's grouchy uncle character, and Arbuckle's character is involved in all kinds of romantic difficulties; he's unable to work things out with the woman he really loves, and he's pursued by a number of others whom he doesn't love. All of these entanglements are set up in a light, fluffy way, and this part makes for pleasant comedy in itself.

In a shorter movie, the setup would most likely have been followed by a lot of slapstick and then a quick resolution, and indeed Roscoe and the cast could have done this without difficulty, since Arbuckle was an expert in working with that kind of format. But here, the story takes it in a more complicated and interesting direction, with the main character's predicament getting more complicated all the time, even as he resorts to various ruses. The last portion features a pleasantly manic unraveling of the tangled web that has developed, and it includes some witty ideas along with the slapstick.

This may not seem all that impressive now, because in the mid- to late 1920s the other silent comedy greats learned to master the full-length format, leading to many movies that are still among the all-time best comedies. Given the chance, Arbuckle could well have created his own comic gems over time. "Leap Year" is only good, not great, but it would have been a solid first step.

2 out of 2 people found the following review useful:
Arbuckle's Unreleased Film So-So, 21 July 2008

Author: CitizenCaine from Las Vegas, Nevada

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

When the Fatty Arbuckle scandal broke, this film was in the can, and the big-wigs decided against releasing it in the United States. Sixty years later, it was finally released. This film is a bit different from Fatty's earlier slapstick comedies; in that, he was trying to focus more on plot than slapstick in this feature length production. Fatty has a rich uncle who is a misogynist, and he gets caught up with giving several women the wrong impression about marriage. There are several funny moments in the film, but Arbuckle was known primarily for his shorter films at the time. This film was a departure, and perhaps he would have improved his features, but being black-listed did not help his career. The pacing of the film improves toward the last third of the film, when Fatty has to start juggling all of his female visitors and play ill. ** of 4 stars.

2 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
60 Years To Be Shown, 21 July 2008

Author: bkoganbing from Buffalo, New York

Though this film is not his best work, still it's a shame that the scandal around Roscoe Arbuckle prevented Leap Year from being shown in America. It occurs to me that if this had been given a theatrical release it would have been eligible for an Oscar in the early Eighties.

I don't think it's that good, but I am reminded so much of Jackie Gleason when I watch Fatty Arbuckle. In this one Arbuckle is a silent version of Gleason's famous playboy Reggie Van Gleason. He's the nephew and heir of eccentric Lucien Littlefield and Arbuckle just seems to get tangled up with women just trying to be helpful.

One who he's not trying to be helpful to is Winnifred Greenwood who's the hatchet faced wife of cheating Clarence Geldart. She's almost as funny as poor Fatty.

Leap Year is worth taking that extra day and checking out the art of Roscoe Arbuckle.

3 out of 6 people found the following review useful:
HIGHLY contrived but watchable, 18 July 2006

Author: planktonrules from Bradenton, Florida

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

This is a full-length Fatty Arbuckle film that was only released abroad because its completion coincided with the highly sensationalized rape trial of Fatty. And, while it's obvious that this is a high quality film made by a major studio instead of the perennially poor Keystone where he had done his earlier work, it's just not that great a film. It's got some very cute moments, but the film has two things working against it. First, the whole "stuttering" thing just isn't funny and it works even more poorly in a silent film. Fatty's character stutters from time to time and this in no may helps the plot and just seems like a cruel thing to joke about in films. Second, and more importantly, the problems that develop might be funny but could so easily have been worked out that it really strains credibility and seems very contrived. You see, Fatty wants to marry a lady and every time he talks to other lady friends about this, they think he's proposing. All he really had to do was TELL THEM the mistake and end the confusion then and there! But, he doesn't and chaos ensues. Plus, the very cute ending where he gets husbands for all three in VERY short order is funny but so unbelievable and once again contrived that it just doesn't work. A watchable but flawed comedy.

1 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
Two from Arbuckle, 11 March 2008
Author: Michael_Elliott from Louisville, KY

Leap Year (1921)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Fatty Arbuckle plays a man who suffers from the sickness of falling in love with every woman he meets. This doesn't sit well with his fiancé when three other women show up to his house, all claiming to be his fiancé. This is a really poor film, the first feature I've seen from Arbuckle. Everything Fatty was good at is missing in this film and it seems like there wasn't any effort put into it. The only real highlight is when Fatty tries to scare off the three women by pretending to have violent fits. The most interesting thing was that this was made prior to Fatty being accused of murder. When he was accused, Hollywood put a ban on his films so this was never released until the early 1980's, nearly fifty years after his death.

Waiter's Ball, The (1916)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

A waiter and a cook (Fatty Arbuckle) fight over who will take a waitress to a dance.

There's some good stunt work inside the kitchen and Fatty has a few nice scenes with a dead fish but not all of the jokes work. The ending is very good however.

6 out of 24 people found the following review useful:
Leap Year is a Poor Performance, 6 June 2005

Author: mcalfieri (mcalfieri@sbcglobal.net) from United States

I watched Leap Year last night on TCM, expecting to see evidence of lost brilliance, since Arbuckle has been touted as a comic genius of the silent years. I was very disappointed. Notwithstanding his status in 1920, his performance in Leap Year simply does not age well. While much has been written about the impact the scandal had on Arbuckle's film career, it may be that his career probably would have died anyway. Let's be honest, jumping up and down and grimacing in front of the camera is about all he did in Leap Year (though he did have some nice acrobatics). Arbuckle is not a peer of Chaplin or Keaton. The scene where he "swims to Japan" is forgettable - there is nothing special there. In fact, the long shots suggest that perhaps he did not do his own diving. For a long time I wondered what was lost when Paramount destroyed "Gasoline Gus" and some of the other features they had in the "can" when the Arbuckle scandal broke. If Leap Year is any indication, I don't think that silent film fans are missing anything.

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