Now "The Cook" has not only been found but beautifully restored in its original tinting of orange and pale purple. The decomposing nitrate footage was found in the vaults of the Norwegian Film Institute by Jan Olsson, from Stockholm University and the restoration work was done by The Media Lab at the National Library of Norway, supervised by Lars Gaustad. As Gaustad said, 

""The Cook"  would never have survived a screening as it was in a terrible condition. It took months of repair just to make it able to pass through renovation and a modified optical printer to match the shrinkage." 

Unfortunately the print was also incomplete when found, approximately 1300ft remains, but that, of course, is better than no print at all! There is more than sufficient footage to appreciate the wonderful cascade of Arbuckle Keaton gags including Arbuckle doing the 'Cleopatra' dance which Keaton later performed for the troops in France during his military service in WW1 and repeated as "The Dance Of The Sea" in "The Hollywood Review Of 1929". Arbuckle also does a long routine, as the cook of the title, with various knives, plates, food and kitchen equipment which he subsequently repeated in "Hey Pop", (1932). There is plenty of Arbuckle's obligatory knife throwing and an exquisite piece of timing with him throwing Keaton a diner's entire order, piece by piece across the kitchen table starting with the plate and followed by the food and coffee, not one item misses its mark! Again repeated in "Hey Pop"  Arbuckle has several uses for the coffee urn, it produces coffee (naturally), gravy and stores Arbuckle's coat in the top. 

A first copy (with the Norwegian intertitles) was shown in Norway during the winter of 98 and an international print was made for the festival in Pordenone in the autumn of 99, unfortunately for non Norwegian speakers, the intertitles were not very international! The same Norwegian intertitles remained for the May 99 screening in Los Angeles at UCLA, but, by  Cinefest in Syracuse in March of 2000, roughly translated English intertitles had been edited in. Currently negotiations are going on to have the film released on video. 

The short opens with one of Arbuckle's infamous gags that is seen in, amongst other films, The Butcher Boy, where he throws a large kitchen knife over his shoulder, it somersaults and land point down in the butcher's block/table behind him. He then picks up a meat cleaver and begins to chop up a cabbage. Just as the blade is about to slice through the vegetable, Buster is sent flying head first through the kitchen door, propelled through the opening by a swift kick from Alice Lake as she is swung round in an ever more wild dance by her partner on the dance floor in the restaurant. Buster lands with his head replacing the cabbage just as Arbuckle is about to bring the meat cleaver down again. Arbuckle fortunately notices the change just in time and Buster goes back to the dining room unscathed. 

Buster returns to the kitchen with an order from a diner for Roscoe to fill, Arbuckle makes the first of his trips to the large urn heating on the stove. He turns on the tap and puts some of the dark liquid into a cup (coffee?), which he then throws to Buster who catches, it without spillage, on his tray, Arbuckle repeats the process with a soup bowl. Presumably whatever the liquid is, it's taste is so nondescript, the diners can't decide what it is! The urn would appear to have magical properties, later it produces milk from the very same tap. Arbuckle continues to fill Keaton's tray in the same manner with plates, food and drink all caught in the same expert manner by Buster.  

Briefly back in the dining room, Buster is buzzing round Alice Lake whom he is quite enamoured with, he notices that she must have been over generous with her face powder and, one presumes out of kindness, decides to surreptitiously blow it off her. With one puff she is all but engulfed in a cloud. Arbuckle meanwhile continues to prepare food in the kitchen, again he casually throws the knife up in the air to return it to the butcher's block. Suddenly, inspired by the music being played in the dining room for a young lady dressed in Theda Bara egyptian style to dance to, Arbuckle picks up various kitchen utensils and some of the food he has been preparing and dresses himself up a la Cleopatra. He swirls and whirls, gyrating with a string of sausages which he tries to encourage to bite his left breast like Cleopatra's asp. Then a role change, the cabbage head he has been working on becomes the head of John the Baptist, he twirls his way out of the kitchen and into the dining room where everyone else has joined in the dance. Buster is dancing with Alice Lake, enter Al St John, he takes Alice from Buster and starts to dance with her, Buster is next seen with a bass fiddle, apparently setting up a gag, this is missing from the print, so unless a more complete print, or this particular fragment is found, we will never know how Luke the dog comes to have his teeth sunk into Al's rear end! Buster encourages Luke and is apparently enjoying Al's pain as he is laughing. Al makes his escape running out of the restaurant hotly pursued by Luke who chases him all over the yard and up a ladder onto the roof a la The Scarecrow.  

Here again there there appears as if there is some footage missing. We cut to a large table where Keaton, Arbuckle and two other people (one is little Bobby Dunn who worked for Sennett, and Henry [Pathe] Lerhman amongst others and was teamed for a while with Slim Summerville for a series of shorts. Dunn later lost an eye performing a high diving stunt for Lerhman), attempting various methods of eating spaghetti. Arbuckle tries knitting it with his cutlery, twirling it up with an egg beater, gets his tie tangled in it and uses his finger as a spool to wind a strand onto before sucking the pasta off. Keaton thinks drinking it may be a good idea so he scoops some onto a cup and trims the surplice away with a cut throat razor. As this doesn't seem to work very well, he tries a similar tactic with the spaghetti heaped onto forks and scissors are employed to trim the edges. One of the diners tries to use a funnel, threading a strand down through the top and sucking it through the narrow end. 

We go back into the kitchen where Arbuckle is demonstrating another use for the urn on the stove. He takes the lid off and removes his coat from inside. Abruptly we find ourselves in an amusement park (a la Coney Island) by the sea. This is surprising as the only time we see outside the cafe is when Al St John is being chased by Luke, that looks more like countryside than the beach. Alice and Buster are riding in a goat drawn cart around the grounds of Goat Land, part of the amusement park. At this point the film begins to get increasingly fragmented. Arbuckle, with Luke, are seen silhouetted against the surf as Arbuckle fishes. Luke sees a large fish that has 'got away' and chases it along the beach. 

We now cut to Al who is chasing Alice again, we do not know how he got her away from Buster and the goat cart. She runs into the water to get away from him, Luke though spies his lost prey and rushes off after Al attempting to get his teeth into his pants again. Alice is now in difficulty in the water and shouting for help and help is soon on the way in the guise of Arbuckle and Keaton. They run along the beach to save her, stopping only to grab a rope they see on a dock, fight over it, lose it to a man who probably owns it as he picks it up and walks off with it. Arbuckle and Keaton go after him, grab an end of the rope each,  and continue their quest to rescue Alice, knocking the man over in the process. They rush into the water and..... That's it! The rest of the film is currently lost, most frustrating. Perhaps one day more fragments will be found, or even an entire print with its original intertitles, now wouldn't that be nice.