Baxter Martin on 06 February at 23:14

“The Knockout” (1914, Avery)

“The Knockout” is more of a Fatty Arbuckle film than a Charlie Chaplin film as Charlie appears as an interfering boxing referee in a segment of the film. With a fair amount of action and a hilarious fight scene to start it off, and introduce us to Arbuckle’s character Pug, this is a better than average 1914 film but still a bit tedious after the boxing match. Apparently, firing guns into the air and at people was cause for hilarity. Pug even runs around struggling to work double fisted with pistols and boxing gloves still on. One dis-jointed from reality marker in the shooting sequence is that everybody reacts to getting hit like someone just hit them with a paintball or a rubber bullet.
The film’s highlights inevitably involve Arbuckle’s great physical comedy aided and abetted by his physique as well as Charlie who is great as the referee who keeps stumbling into the fighters during the first round and joins the match in the second round much to the delight of the audience (both onscreen and off!). Drop-kicks, rock throwing, shooting, boxing…c’mon, what’s missing? Not a bad effort and much better than some of the other Keystone 1914 films.