Cast:
W. C. Fields (Larsen E. Whipsnade), Edgar Bergen (Himself and the characters Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd), Constance Moore (Vicky Whipsnade), John Arledge (Phineas Whipsnade), Eddie "Rochester" Anderson (Rochester), James Bush (Roger Bel-Goodie), Mary Forbes (Mrs. Bel-Goodie), Thurston Hall (Mr. Bel-Goodie), and Grady Sutton (Chester) Directed by George Marshall (#650 - The Ghost Breakers and #2228 - How the West Was Won) and Edward F. Cline (#877 - Three Ages and #1354 - The Bank Dick)
Review:
Sure, let's talk about W. C. Fields again. This was the first film Fields made away from Paramount Pictures, which he had made over a dozen movies with before troubles with The Big Broadcast of 1938 led to his departure from the studio. He had done work on radio, most notably having routines with ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and his dummy Charlie McCarthy. Bergen had been a ventriloquist since he was a teenager and had McCarthy as his sidekick created out of a broomstick, rubber bands and cords. In what you might as well call "it was the old times", despite a run from vaudeville to movie shorts, the best notable success for Bergen and McCarthy was on radio, which they did all the way from the late 1930s until 1956 (one suggestion is that is because audiences just believed in the character of McCarthy as a youth they could hear, which probably went just as well for the other dummy in Mortimer Snerd); at any rate, Bergen and company did do a few films together, starting with The Goldwyn Follies (1938)*. So here we are with a Universal Pictures effort that had the efforts of two directors: George Marshall did everything besides working with Fields due to an apparent dislike of him, while Edward F. Cline worked with Fields (incidentally, B. Reeves Eason was the second-unit director doing the chase sequences). Fields starred in three further films: My Little Chickadee, The Bank Dick, and Never Give a Sucker an Even Break prior to his death in 1946.
Admittedly, this works for those who just want a hodgepodge of jokes rather than an involving plot. The screenplay was written by Everett Freeman, Richard Mack, and George Marion Jr, as based on a story written by W. C. Fields (for what totally sounds funny reasons, he was credited as "Charles Bogle"). Really the film just sails on how much you value the misanthropy and huckstering of Fields. It probably works out the best when he is doing an impression of performers by necessity, whether that involves taking on a beard or trying to play ventriloquist (at least when he plays the dummy, there's a mustache trying to hide the movement of one's mouth, unlike a certain person). The 79 minutes come and go with a good deal of amusement at the proceedings with Fields basically trying to play people to a fiddle (blood relation or not) because I'll be damned if Bergen can keep up with him. Sure, there are moments when he can be a decent straight man but he can't really sell anything when it comes to the idea of a love story between him and Moore and when you have two puppets that come and go in...being puppets, you have a film that only works on a basic level. One odd thing for the modern audience: No, I'm not sure exactly why blackface was thought to be so funny that it even creeps up for a sequence midway through where the dummy is shown in makeup. So it goes. The sequence where Fields intrudes on the proceedings of higher-class people is at least pretty funny in seeing the contrast and an elaborate game of ping-pong, particularly since the movie basically just ends with little to show for it (you've got a chase of a chariot and a bike that is closed out by a puppet in a balloon). As a whole, there are a few interesting moments within a film that creaks more than most of its age, which may or may not make for a fine time for those interested in Fields or comedies in general.
Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.
*Right before Bergen died, he filmed a cameo scene for The Muppet Movie - Jim Henson stated that Bergen was his idol. One of the original dummies is now part of the permanent collection of the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of American History.
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