Mabel and Fatty's Married Life

I'm sure FATTY ARBUCKLE and MABEL NORMAND deserved their popularity back in 1915 when silents were attracting audiences to this new thing called "the movies", but frankly it's easy to dismiss it today as little more than a nostalgic look at Hollywood's primitive beginnings.

Both are likable enough and the set-up is good for laughs, as they visit a park and interact with an organ grinder and his monkey. This leads to the scenes were Mabel is alone at home letting her imagination run away her and suspecting that the gangster described in the newspaper is trying to get into her home.

The mysterious quiver of the drapes frightens her for awhile, until the moment arrives when the organ grinder himself dares to part the curtains and reveal the culprit to be his monkey.

What strikes me most about the early silent films is the tackiness of the sets, not to mention the unbelievable bad taste in set decoration and furnishings. This is especially true here, as Mabel's house is a house of horrors as far as "set decoration" is concerned.

Summing up: Watchable but certainly not the best of the duo's collaborations.