weezeralfalfa This may well be the most entertaining W.C.Fields film, as several reviewers claim. I couldn't say, as I haven't yet seen others....By 1939, W.C. had shed his contract with Paramount, to spend his few remaining film years at Universal. This was his last full feature film in which he starred. In it, he costars with precocious 15y.o. Gloria Jean, noted for her charm, beauty, and especially her operatic voice, with which she competed with Universal's other singing sensation: Diana Durbin. The previous year, Gloria Jean had costarred with Bing Crosby in the musical drama "If I had My Way". In both films, she was characterized as recently orphaned, with Bing or W.C. as her new guardian, much in the manor of most Shirley Temple films, over at Fox. It was a consistently endearing characterization. In this film, the story is that her mother(Anne Nagel), with the circus name of Madame Gorgeous, had fallen to her death in a performance accident, and her friend 'Uncle Bill' agreed to become her guardian.)(Some of Anne's scenes communicating this event seem to have been cut, rendering the relationship between W.C. and Gloria Jean more mysterious than should have been the case). Gloria Jean is sometimes present without W.C., as when she is the star in a movie being filmed. In it, she sings several classic songs with her operatic voice. Later, she accompanies W.C. on his idiosyncratic trip to a Russian colony in Mexico. She gets separated from him during the flight when his whisky bottle falls out the open(!) window. He follows it, landing on the outdoor sofa of wealthy Mrs. Hemoglobin, on the flattish top of a mountain with precipitous sides. He first encounters her 21y.o. daughter, played by knockout blond Susan Miller, in a revealing outfit. Reportedly, she has never seen a man before, her mother having left her father for this isolated mountain around the time of her birth. Thus, W.C. teaches her the fine art of kissing.(Much reminds me of a similar situation in "Against All Flags", with Errol Flynn doing the teaching). Two more men will soon appear in the persons of Leon Errol, as 'the Rival', who hopes to steal Mrs. Hemoglobin away from W.C., and Charles Lang, as Peter Carson, who hopes to charm the daughter(Ouilotta), fulfilling her desire to practice kissing more. Both had considerable difficulty scaling the cliffs of the mountain. 'The Rival' had extra trouble when the Hemoglobins' pet gorilla was met. Actually, it behaved more like a chimp than a gorilla. W.C. manages to push 'the Rival' off a cliff. Meanwhile, Susan breaks out with "Coming Through the Rye", first in standard meter, finishing in jive mode. Meanwhile, Gloria Jean has been interacting with the Russians, including singing a classic Russian song. Somehow, she gets transferred to the base of the mountain and is taken up in a basket. Later, W.C. and Gloria Jean return to the US, where W.C. argues with the producer (Franklin Panghorn) about the suitability of a story he has written, based on the experiences in the film, for use in a film. Panghorn had interceded several times before, expressing his dissatisfaction. Panghorn added some comedic content to the film. In general, he was most noted as playing men of some authority, who were frustrated in their ability to achieve order and predictability in their lives. Panghorn was rather distinctive looking, with his pudding face, frequent exasperated look, and often submissive posturing.Despite the many sight gags and one liners, by far, the most entertaining comedy was provided by ultimate Keystone Kops production, while W.C. was transporting a matronly woman in a rush to get to the maternity ward of the hospital. She passes out from the hair-raising driving of W.C. He has many wild near misses before crashing outside the hospital.In the future, Gloria Jean would switch to having fellow teen Donald O'Connor as her male partner, in a number of musical comedies, before her film career fizzled. In part, she was signed as insurance against problems with Universal's first songbird: Diana Durbin, and no other studio seemed interested in her. As of this date, she's still around, as is the older Susan Miller(Ouilotta), being nearly a centenarian.As Field's film career waned, in effect, he was being replaced at Universal by the Abbott and Costello comedy team.

museumofdave Imagine handing a studio executive a script in which your hero falls out of the open window of an airplane while chasing a whiskey bottle and lands atop a mountain where Mrs. Hemoglobin lives with her daughter (who has never seen a man) and her pet gorilla...this is part of a script which Fields hands to Director Franklin Pangborn in the film (and which we see enacted) and the same script Fields himself wrote under the pseudonym of Otis Criblecoblis.If zany, off-the-wall, slightly surreal humor appeals to you (mixed with some irrelevant musical numbers from Gloria Jean that Universal probably forced Fields to include as part of his financing bargain), this cinematic oddity may be your ideal afternoon of fun--half the best lines are half-thrown away by Fields, so it pays to listen closely and enjoy The Great Man towards the end of his career, unfettered by convention and often very funny. No one has ever approached the distinctive comic style of this off-the-wall social critic, and with political correctness guiding most studio fare, it is doubtful that anyone will.

bobc-5 The movie centers around W. C. Fields, playing a fictional version of himself, trying to pitch a script at Esoteric Studios. The purpose is presumably to provide a vehicle for Fields' young star-in-the-making niece, but it's actually an absurd story which features Fields himself. As we watch the film within the film, we're occasionally interrupted by producer Franklin Pangborn (an actor also using his real name here) telling us just how ridiculous the movie we're watching is.With some nice behind-the-scenes shots and a completely irreverent attitude, this movie clearly had the potential to be a wonderful satire of the film industry, but it would've required much better dialog and a younger W. C. Fields to make that happen. Although it's a nice touch to have Pangborn telling us in the film itself just how bad the film is, there is nothing particularly insightful or witty about his remarks, nor is there any indication of satirical intent in the many clichéd and overworked gags seen throughout the film. The fact that there is no real effort to connect the final chase sequence to the plot is no doubt seen by many as part of this movie's charm, but there was no framework created which would let me see that as a positive. As far as Fields himself goes, it's hard to believe that only one year passed between making the "Bank Dick" and this film; he seems to have aged at least a decade. The Fields magic is missing through most of the movie, leaving him looking clumsy and tired.In spite of these flaws, the movie is nevertheless a fun way to spend an hour and fifteen minutes. Many of the more absurd scenes are quite memorable, my favorite being Fields diving off the open-air observation deck of a luxury airplane in flight so as to retrieve a liquor bottle which fell from the railing. Some of the gags hit their mark, completely unexpected things keep popping up, and occasionally Fields is able to place himself in a situation where he can at least come close to conjuring up the mannerisms and expressions which made him such a brilliant comic actor in the past. The final sequence may have nothing to do with the rest of the film, but it's still an outstanding comic chase scene. To sum it up, this is an entertaining and somewhat memorable film which moves briskly from start to finish, but it's unfortunately not a particularly good one.

theowinthrop It was W.C. Fields' last lead role in a film - and his last knock at the system that gave him immortality. In THE BANK DICK Fields took several aims at making movies - from his drunken film director A Pismo Clam to his screenplay that was better than GONE WITH THE WIND (which he actually does sell at the end of the film). But there were many targets in THE BANK DICK. NEVER GIVE A SUCKER AN EVEN BREAK is a film about making movies. Fields is trying to sell his next picture to Esoteric Pictures, which is run by Franklin Pangborn. The crazy story line begins with him proudly seeing an advertisement billboard for THE BANK DICK, only to find two little brats razzing it. He and his niece, Gloria Jean, are both trying to get into business with Esoteric, and Pangborn is actually willing to sign up Gloria Jean - but she slaps him when he bad mouths her Uncle Bill. We see a rehearsal at Esoteric for Gloria Jean, and see the incongruities of the studio system when Pangborn, carried away by the music, finds himself also carried away by two actors dressed as Nazi soldier goose stepping. So it goes throughout the film, even ending with a mad car chase to get a woman to her destination - except she is taken to a maternity hospital that she did not want to go to. But, as THE BANK DICK showed, all comedies should end with a mad chase.There are references to other comics in the film, especially Fields' rivals the Marx Brothers. His interview with Pangborn is interrupted by Madame Pastrami, the cleaning lady - whom an angry Fields calls "a Groucho Marx" (actually she's a "Chico"). And the leading lady he tries to romance for her money in his film - Mrs. Hemoglobin - is none other than Margaret Dumont, Groucho's usual girlfriend. Field's past with Ziegfeld is brought in too (although not his film career it led to his film career). His rival for Miss Dumont is Leon Erroll, his old fellow Ziegfeld comic. One also wonders if the Marxes and Ziegfeld are the only references thrown in. The incongruous appearance of an ape on top of Mrs. Hemoglobin's mountain retreat is similar to the ape on the swinging rope bridge in the alps in Laurel & Hardy's SWISS MISS.The film lacks structure, so it is not as well received as THE BANK DICK, IT'S A GIFT, of THE OLD FASHIONED WAY. But Field's crazy script raises an issue - do we really need structure to enjoy a funny film? Years before Monty Python discovered that a sketch did not need to reach a logical conclusion to be successful, Fields demonstrated it in this full length film. He finds structure a nuisance. Look at how he openly tells the audience that his sequence in an ice cream parlor should have been in a bar. And the audience appreciates the hint.Nothing has to be straightforward, because we understand that everything means something else. Fields sings of chickens and their legs in Kansas, and we realize that the song is not about poultry, but about the legs of pretty ladies (like the stewardesses who smile while he sings). The film flows on, making a mockery of film making but celebrating it at the same time.