The Floating College

Two little children, who think themselves very much in love with each other, imbued with the ideas of their elders, plan a romantic marriage. Alvin Strong, the boy, confides his intentions to the family's servant, Jaspar. Alvin arranges with Jane, his sweetheart, to elope in the usual way, through a window, with the assistance of a ladder.

Fatty, his wife and mother-in-law are on a ferry to Catalina Island for an outing. So are Mabel and her father. Mabel and Fatty flirt with each other, and Fatty tosses her father overboard, thinking he is another suitor. The boat docks and the two go their separate ways. Mack Swain tries to pick Mabel up, too. All go to rent bathing suits, Fatty locks Mack in a dressing room with mother-in-law. Fatty and Mabel feed a large fish to a seal at the water's edge, and then engage in some graceful and comic diving. Swain, Avery, Durfee and Davenport see them diving and corner them...everyone's relationship to each other is revealed. —Ben Model, [email protected]

Silas Warner dictates a letter commanding his son Harry to leave college at once and enter his office as an employee. Furthermore, Mr. Warner has in mind the marriage of his son to his partner's daughter. When Harry receives his father's letter, he returns home, but takes a decided stand in opposition to his father's ideas. Furthermore, Harry is about to be married to Rose Blend. Warner's partner, Martin, turns out to be a defaulter, and almost ruins the firm. Harry reads a newspaper account of his father's ills and trouble, so he and his wife go to see and assist him. As Mr. Warner is convalescent, he extends to his son and wife his parental blessings.

Male and female sales agents, Phil and Ruth, for rival hosiery concerns try to land an order. For a while Phil succeeds and puts on an exhibition but Ruby makes the mannequins use her own brand of hose, flirts with the buyer and wins order away from her rival.

Screwball slapstick with Fatty and Minta mixed up in zany adventures.

Fatty hopes to marry for money but thanks to many slapstick complications his plan doesn't go as smoothly as he intended.

Fatty's Gift is a 1914 Comedy short.

Tramp Roscoe Arbuckle saves a girl from drowning in a pond and is given a job on the police force. A jealous officer dopes him causing him to sleep through a robbery, but afterwards wakes up and captures the miscreants.

Bee Haven, a little country girl from Missouri, wins a Charleston contest and goes to New York to pursue a theatrical career, accompanied by Charlie Ross, a bucolic sheik. Her country attire merely amuses the stage managers, but Tom Gatesby, a backer, persuades Bozoni, a cabaret owner, to give her a job. She innocently accepts money from Bozoni to furnish a luxury apartment; and when disillusioned Bozoni cancels the payments for her furniture and new clothes, Bee tries to avoid the gown-collectors, but they retrieve her gown and fur coat. In desperation, she joins a revue chorus, doing a lingerie number that results in a fight with Valentia, the star of the show. Tom rescues Bee from her precarious position, and all ends happily.

Mabel has two suitors, Smith and Jones. Smith is an elderly man who impetuously sweeps everything before him, and his dashing ways win Mabel's heart. Poor Jones is downcast when he learns that Mabel is to marry Smith, and follows Smith home. He learns that Smith is already married and has ten little children.

His subjects have been vainly petitioning the king for improvements in his reign, without avail. The king pays too much attention to the sweetheart of a country bumpkin who shows his resentment by chasing his royal highness with a pistol and perforating the royal legs. The king takes refuge in the top of a tree, from which ignominious position he is finally rescued by his courtiers. In consideration of the bumpkin promising not to tell the queen of this latest escapade, the king grants the petition of his subjects.

Mabel Normand first starring role is a familiar story of a woman living beyond her means.

Harpo played the hero, a detective named Watson who "made his entrance in a high hat, sliding down a coal chute into the basement". Groucho played an "old movie" villain, who "sported a long moustache and was clad in black", while Chico was probably his "chuckling [Italian] henchman". Zeppo portrayed a playboy who was the owner of a nightclub in which most of the action took place, including "a cabaret, [which allowed] the inclusion of a dance number". The final shot showed Groucho "in ball and chain, trudging slowly off into the gloaming". Harpo, in a rare moment of romantic glory, gets the girl in the end. This film is lost.

Released on July 3, 1927

Hubby is anxious to get away for a little time at the beach with the boys, and works up a quarrel with wifey over a new hat, the bill for which he is asked to pay. Making this excuse, he goes off with his chums. The wife is an expert swimmer and diver and is invited to attend a meet of the ladies' swimming club, of which she was formerly a member. Her husband's treatment induces her to accept the invitation. The affair takes place at the very beach to which the husband hied himself. One may imagine that hubby has not only plunged into the cooling waters of the surf, but into domestic hot water as well.

The deacon's daughter, Betty, is in love with Harold Price. The deacon wants to buy a horse from Harry's father, but because Mr. Price will not give it to him at his own figure the deacon quarrels with Price, and forbids his daughter to see Harry. A troupe of minstrels, stranded, are walking back to New York, and Harry and Betty meet them. They make up as actors, and, accompanied by their new-found friends, rush to the deacon's home and tell him they are an eloping couple who wish to be married. The deacon ties the knot, and after the ceremony the make-up is removed, and he finds he has officiated at his own daughter's wedding. He finally sees the humor of the situation, and his charitable spirit is shared by Harry's father, who makes him a present of the horse he coveted.

An amusing bowling match between Messrs. Sauer and Kraut. The balls and pins are manipulated by an electric magnet and perform some queer antics. There is, of course, the usual roughhouse finish, with Ford and Mabel in the important parts. Good fun, without offense.

George is addicted to the flowing cup, and his friends all try to reform him. His intentions are good, but his will is weak and he cannot resist the companionship of bibulous friends. Drastic measures are resorted to, to cure him. One of his friends dresses as a woman, who presents a fierce aspect. When George awakens he is told that while under the influence of liquor he has married his woman, and she proceeds to assert herself. George is in a terrible mental state, but finally he sees the shoe of the "woman" who has forgotten to change those pedal protectors, and the scheme dawns upon him.

Struggling young painter Ruth Elliott has written her Eastern friend Mildred Colburn that she has gained fame in the West as an artist. When Mildred stops to visit on her way to Honolulu, Ruth hires Peter Neyland to pose as her chauffeur for five hours. Peter is actually a wealthy young man who accepts the offer as a lark.

Muggsy Mulane, a waif who wears boy's clothing, jumps a freight train to the country after Jimmy "the Eel," the leader of the gang of crooks with whom she works, is arrested. In the village of Cottonville, Muggsy befriends Aunt Sarah, whom she later discovers is Jimmy's mother. When Muggsy learns that the greedy Judge Cotton, who holds the mortgage on Aunt Sarah's property, is planning to foreclose, she threatens to blackmail him, and he relents.