Cast:
W.C. Fields (Harold Bissonette), Kathleen Howard (Amelia Bissonette), Jean Rouverol (Mildred Bissonette), Julian Madison (John Durston), Tommy Bupp (Norman Bissonette), Tammany Young (Everett Ricks), Baby LeRoy (Baby Elwood Dunk), Morgan Wallace (Jasper Fitchmueller), Charles Sellon (Mr. Muckle), Josephine Whittell (Mrs. Dunk), Diana Lewis (Betty Dunk), and Dell Henderson (Charles Abernathy) Directed by Norman Z. McLeod (#688 - Horse Feathers, #1346 - Topper, and #1829 - Topper Takes a Trip)
Review:
There are quite a handful of movies one could watch that feature W. C. Fields (silent or sound), whether it features him playing a hard-drinking misanthrope or an everyman. Generally, the characters he played in those movies (starring roles at least) were in the former category, but this is one of his roles in the latter. Jack Cunningham is the credited writer for the movie, although it is the adaptation material that matters most. J.P. McEvoy was the original author of the musical revue that became The Comic Supplement, a 1925 production that had W.C. Fields write his own scenes (incidentally, when he did film scripts, he liked to go under false names like Otis Criblecoblis); you may remember that Fields had done many years of vaudeville and Broadway before he did movies. Fields was a vaudeville star. Fields cribbed routines from the 1910s and 1920s with this film, most notably with the sketch involving a back porch that he had done in It's the Old Army Game (1926). Fields was quite busy in 1934, with this being the sixth feature he appeared in that year, with a sudden decline in health eventually leading him to less roles over the next couple of years.
Fields obviously knows what is best when it comes to light fare that feature select wisecracks for 68 minutes that has the bare minimum in plot for a decent experience. He handles the routines presented here with careful timing and preparation that stages things exactly the way one hopes for, whether that involves a scene where he tries to go to sleep amid a series of inconveniences. Being the hen-pecked man in the middle works out for the most part when paired with Howard in razor-sharp edge more so than the child presences in Rouverol and Bupp that are more in the background with occasional bits to pop in (such as a picnic or a winding sequence with a mirror). This is the third and final feature to feature Baby LeRoy in a Fields movie (he and Fields also made cameo appearances separately with Alice in Wonderland (1933), also directed by McLeod), with the first two being Tillie and Gus (1933) and The Old Fashioned Way (1934). Yes, there was a time when babies were billed like this; Ronald Le Roy Overacker was featured in ten movies from 1933 to 1935. McLeod stated that Fields had a phobia of the baby (and infants in general) to the point where he swore at the baby in front of the camera. Honestly, there isn't much to really say about him, since it's just one scene of a baby doing things that are meant to be wacky like touching a molasses spigot or whatever. Young, Wallace, and Sellon are all featured in one scene with the grocery store: one plays a blind man that Fields tries to make him not suffer mishaps, one who really wants kumquats, and a bumbling fool. This works out for a couple of chuckles in a vignette Fields handles with worthy consistency to the foils presented to him in arrangement. In total, a steady amount of sequences that run for a few minutes at a time make for a decent experience, one that goes pretty much the way you think a movie ostensibly about a man trying to buy an orange grove. The fun is seeing what gets accomplished in generating humor with its key man freewheeling his way through for leisure and laughs that make for a decent experience to breeze through for those with an hour to spare or for those who want to see a Fields movie in his era of effectiveness.
Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.
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