by Leo Guild
1962, Paperback Library
Despite the bottle on the cover, this is a fairly straightforward account of the legal case against Fatty Arbuckle in his three trials, concentrating on the testimony provided and less on the yellow journalism surrounding it as more modern accounts have.
A short summary: Fatty Arbuckle was one of the biggest comics of the silent era. A young actress, Virginia Rappe, took ill at a party at his hotel and died shortly after, possibly from a perforated bladder. Arbuckle was accused of rape and murder, but cleared in court on his third trial after two mistrials.
From the contents of this book, it's clear there was not enough evidence presented in trial to make the case, there is no basis for the more salacious rumors that Fatty killed her with a shard of ice or bottle, but outside of the court the accounts were such a mess that we'll never know if Fatty took advantage of an incapacitated Rappe.
There's a zealous prosecutor whose whole case seemed to hinge on "doesn't he look like a pervert" on one side, and the power of the studio system on the other. While the studios weren't afraid to throw Fatty under the bus, they were notorious for "fixing" criminal issues. Witnesses didn't show up, everyone changed their story, people were threatened to say they were bribed or bribed to say they were threatened.
The star witness, who claimed to hear an ambiguous outcry from Rappe, was either a convicted blackmailer according to one account, or Fatty's lawyers reported her for bigamy according to another. It's interesting to see the defense work, bringing witnesses to counter arguments that never actually got presented.
For instance, they brought a half dozen witnesses to claim that Rappe was an hysteric who would spontaneously rip clothing off and scream in pain. This was to counter testimony that her clothes were found ripped and people heard her screaming, testimony that didn't make it to court. The prosecutor hinted that he would have witnesses who said Fatty stabbed her with a shard of ice that never came up, and the defense had a closing witness they claimed was poisoned in the courtroom with a piece of candy given to her by a mysterious man.
According to this account, 27 doctors disagreed on 100 points of medical opinion. No wonder modern armchair true crime buffs can pick and choose to make whatever case they want. One thing that's outlasted the trial was the defaming of the victim. The defense entered that she got medicine for vaginal inflammation eight years previously, which was meant to be damning. Later accounts claim she was a sex worker, stds contributed to her illness, or a botched abortion, or she was on her way to an abortion, all kinds of misogynistic and irrelevant claims. For instance, the dubious claim that she spread pubic lice around the Max Sennett studio years before doesn't have anything to do with her bladder health or if Fatty attacked her.
Even his supporters seem to have a backup position that there might have been consensual sex (with an almost unconscious drunk women in medical distress) and it was just bad timing for her bladder to go out, the assaults on Rappe's character being in service to that notion.
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