...maybe Fields is an acquired taste.
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Having grown up with the movies of W.C. Fields on television, I hadn't really given much thought to the old comic's being an acquired taste. Then, a few years ago a close friend and I got to talking about him. He said he could never understand the man's popularity. He had seen bits and pieces of "Poppy," "Never Give a Sucker an Even Break," "My Little Chickadee," and the like, but never a complete film, so I asked him to watch a tape copy of W.C. Fields' "The Bank Dick" with me. About halfway through the movie, he fell asleep. When it was over, he conceded that some parts of it were, indeed, amusing. Well, maybe Fields is an acquired taste after all.
Certainly, Fields' brand of comedy was unique for its time and remains unique today. There are those of us who consider him hilarious and others who wonder what all the fuss is about. In any event, the availability of Fields' best film, "The Bank Dick" from 1940, on a Criterion DVD provides newcomers with the opportunity to decide for themselves if he was a very funny man or not.
Fields loved to play with words, with the sounds of words, and nowhere does it show up better than in "The Bank Dick." It's said he set his story in the town of Lompoc, California, merely because he liked the silly sound of the name. He got around the censors of his day with such bogus profanities as "Godfrey Daniel!" and "Mother of Pearl!" And consider some of the names he invented for the movie: his own character is Egbert Sousé, with an accent over the "e," (Sou-SAY), but he is unavoidably referred to as "souse," as in drunk, something he revels in. Then there's J. Pinkerton Snoopington, the bank examiner played by Franklin Pangborn, the actor's real name probably delighting Fields no end; Og Oggilby ("Sounds like a bubble in a bathtub"), his daughter's fiancee played by Grady Sutton; J. Frothingham Waterbury, a confidence man played by Russell Hicks; Filthy McNasty, a bank robber played by Al Hill; and my favorite, A. Pismo Clam, a movie director played by Jack Norton. Lastly, Fields wrote the screenplay under the pen name Mahatma Kane Jeeves, a reference not only to the leader of peaceful resistance in India at the time but a play on what Fields said was a typical request of a butler in movies: "My hat, my cane, Jeeves."
The movie was directed by Edward "Eddie" Cline, who had directed many of Buster Keaton's films as well as several of Fields', but you have the feeling that it was really Fields who was calling the shots on this one. After all, the extremely thin plot line of "The Bank Dick" is little more than an excuse to showcase a series of Fields' stage routines.
It begins by establishing the accustomed Fields persona: a lazy, grumpy, alcoholic, henpecked husband, forever badgered by his wife, Agatha (Cora Witherspoon), his mother-in-law, Mrs. Hermisillo Brunch (Jesse Ralph), his oldest daughter, Myrtle (Una Merkel), and his youngest daughter, Elsie Mae (Evelyn Del Rio), who wears a curl right in the middle of her forehead. "Don't you dare strike that child," says his wife. "Well," Fields replies, "she's not going to tell me I don't love her." He makes a living by working puzzle contests, going to theater bank nights, and suggesting slogans. His only refuge is the local tavern, provocatively named the Black Pussy Cafe, run by former and future Stooge, Shemp Howard, as Joe Guelpe.
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