Back Stage (1919)

Back Stage is a 1919 American comedy film, one of the last films that Buster Keaton would appear with Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle before they went their separate ways, Keaton would get his own studio, and Arbuckle got into feature-length films.

In this film, Keaton, Arbuckle, and others, work as stagehands, backstage of course, in a playhouse trying to help and in some cases, stay far away from the eccentric and diva-like performers. When the performers rebel and refuse to do the show, the stagehands, along with Arbuckle's love interest, the assistant of one of the rebelling performers, perform in their place- including Keaton showing his ability to do butterflies, no handed cartwheels, while in drag.

Several Arbuckle shorts use sight gags that other comedians elaborate on for other films. In Back Stage Arbuckle uses the falling wall sequence, a gag that Keaton elaborated on in his later films. A piece of the set falls on Fatty but a window in the set piece saves him from being crushed by it. Keaton used this gag in his first short One Week and much more famously in Steamboat Bill Jr.

Synopsis

Dans les coulisses d’un music-hall, les trois compères (Fatty, Buster et Al St. John) sont machinistes. Ils s’affairent, montent et démontent les décors, accueillent les artistes et les placent dans leurs loges.

Actors