Looking for Mabel Normand

 

MABEL’S WILFUL WAY

 

April 5, 2009

by Marilyn Slater

Looking for Mabel

 

Although, I have seen “Mabel’s Wilful Way” (Keystone 1915) a number of times, the Forgotten Films of Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle has a wonderful copy in its DVD set, and also at Malnor Films. I saw only what was on the film and had not thought about the way it was made, the when, where and how until my friend, William M Drew directed me to a couple of articles he found in the Newspaper Archive.  If you don’t use that resource you are missing a very important tool.  Between the Google Books & Newspaper Archive, the internet has done half the work for the researcher.

 

The one-reel comedy was part of a series of amusement park rambles that Roscoe and Mabel made during the late spring of 1915.  “Fatty and Mabel at the San Diego Exposition” (Keystone 1915),  “Mabel and Fatty Viewing the World’s Fair at San Francisco” (Keystone 1915), and while in the San Francisco Bay area they also made “Mabel’s Wilful Way” at Idora Park in Oakland. At sometime in a later post I would love to explore the use of the Venice and Coney Island amusement parks in Mabel’s film history.

 

It was in Rob King’s “The Fun Factory” where I found the amazing insight into the development of the amusement parks, the “idea playground” where special rules of behavior applied.  The idea of flirtations and mechanical devices all mixed up as a place where the “new woman” was pushing the boundaries of expectable behavior and Mabel Normand was the role model for both the working class and educated “new woman”, and here she was at the Idora Park, a true hetero-social center.

 

The Idora Park deserves a real long look but if you promise to look at the “Mabel’s Wilful Way”, you will see what a fantastic fantasyland it was without me running on and on about the park; it was pulled down in 1929.  A couple of things I think you should know about the location used in “Mabel’s Wilful Way” is that Idora Park had originally been built in 1903 and after the earthquake in 1906, the population of Oakland doubles and the park became famous for its Opera house, the Tivoli Theater relocated there after the earthquake with Ferris Hartman and his comic stars calling themselves The Idora Park Comic Opera Company.  Among the comic stars that appeared in “The Mikado”, “The Pirates of Penzance” was the astonishing Roscoe Arbuckle, the co-star of “Mabel’s Wilful Way.”  Roscoe was on his home turf, feeding ice cream to bears and sliding around the amusement park.

 

On April 15 the Oakland Tribune ran an article about Mabel Normand sliding down the mountain at the park.  “Oh! My clothes, My clothes!” screamed Mabel as the camera rolled as she slide down the hill.  A crowd watched as electric fans created a breeze to blow her dress just right.  When it was Edgar Kennedy's turn to come down the slide after a few rehearsals; Mabel and Roscoe joined the fans enjoying watching Edgar overturn over and over again.

 

The filming was finished on April 23, 1915, the Keystone troupe spent a week at the park working on the comedy, the story according to the April 18 paper was  “a rough and tumble adventure of a merry maid, who escapes from her parents, is followed by both Roscoe and Edgar, who of course fight. There were mass quantities of ice cream, blackberry pies, waffles with maple syrup, hamburgers all smeared into hair, face and down the neck.  The crowds at the park loved it! Each time a pie was smashed into the face the crowd cheered.  The policemen, park attendants, diving horses, bears, Pelz band members were all characters in the comedy.  Many of the visitors that day at the park were also in the movie.  After all, it was more fun making movies than seeing them according to some of the fans. 

 

Idora Park made the most of the film making; for days before the filming began the public was encouraged to purchase tickets to see “Fatty” Arbuckle Mabel Normand and other Keystone favorites being photographed in filming new scenarios at the big amusement park”

 

MABEL'S WILFUL WAY

“Idora Park Story”

Keystone-Mutual

1 reel, farce

Released: May 1, 1915

Directed by both: Roscoe Arbuckle, and Mabel Normand

Cast: Mabel Normand, Roscoe Arbuckle, Edgar Kennedy, Alice Davenport, Joe Bordeaux

Location:  Idora Park, Oakland

Copyright:  May 1, 1915

The film is at The Library of Congress and is in public domain

 

 

 “Mabel’s Wilful Way” is one of the happy Keystone romps that reminds us all of the reasons Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle and Mabel Normand’s frolics were so powerful and Keystone comedies were the masterpieces of sheer joy. This is not to say that other 1 reel comedies didn’t do funny-things, but to my way of thinking Keystone was just a step above and “Mabel’s Wilful Way” survives to prove it. 

 When I posted the article about the promotion of Idora Park location as a week long filming of the comedy, I received a very thoughtful email from Sarah, a member of Balloonatics telling us about the reactions of some of the park vendors when after shooting tons of film of diving horses and food tossing only a single reel was released and many hoping to see themselves on screen were disappointed; after all, part of the whole advertising of the film in Idora Park was “come to the park to be part of the merriment”.  Idora Park is a lost corner of Oakland history. 

 

Re: [The_Balloonatics] Mabel's Wilful Way (1915 Keystone) . . . information on Mabel's Wilful Way. I found in my research on diving horses that it was filmed at Idora Park and one of the articles I found it said that the diving horse would be in the film. I went and bought a dvd that had Mabel's Wilful Way on it but there was no scene with the diving horse in it.

 

Does anyone know if that scene with the diving horse is lost or what may have happened to it? Some of the other scenes mentioned in the newspaper articles I found were also not in the version I saw. One of them involved pies being thrown at some of the characters faces and that the woman who made the pies was not happy when she found out what the pies were going to be used for. That scene was not in the version I saw. Sarah

 

As “Mabel’ Wilful Way” was released as a 1-reel comedy and the copy available is also a single reel, there is little chance that it was ever longer; so the scenes were not cut later, just not included.  

 

The venders at the park were not the victims of one of the politically correct cleaning up of early films.  It wasn’t until after World War 2 that animal rights groups became very vocal in their criticism of the perceived abuse of horses in the shows. There were a number of protests regarding the use of animals in amusement park and sideshow attractions but I am pretty sure that it didn’t effect the editing of the reel in 1915.