The Art of W.C. Fields

I read a rather disheartening article the other day. It was a review of W.C. Fields' "Never Give a Sucker an Even Break". In it, the critic dismisses the film, and he claims Fields is no longer funny for modern audiences. Recently I just purchased a box set of Fields' work and curiously enough I had just viewed "Never Give a Sucker and Even Break" for the first time before stumbling upon this critique. Needless to say I was shocked as to what he was saying.

Now this is me, I know I may have a bias towards old movies, I always seem to have to defend myself towards my taste of movies to modern audiences. I enjoy these movies not because it's nostalgic to do so. It's so well and good to say they don't make them like they used to, of course they don't, no one does. A more concise claim would be they don't make them as well anymore, comedy included.

W.C. Fields was no exception, I would rank him in the list greats like The Marx Brothers, Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, Woody Allen, and Monty Python. Fields isn't as fondly remembered today as some of the people I mentioned above, and that's too bad.

Fields usually had two separate characters he would play, usually it would that of a con man, a blowhard who would do whatever he could to get rich quick. He would quip amazing bits of quotations most of which he would write himself. The way he spoke in these characters probably would be his most famous trademark.

But Fields would also have another character, that of the long suffering, frustrated man who could never catch a break. These are the men of such films as "It's a Gift", or "The Man on the Flying Trapeze". Those films especially concern the art of frustration. Everyone in the world is against him, his wife, his in-laws, his children, his neighbors. Everything seems to try and keep him down, but he has enormous tenacity to keep going.

Both of these characters, the blowhard con man or the long suffering man are perfect comic personas for Fields' unique voice. Fields is the unlikely hero who usually wins in the end. In "It's a Gift", Fields almost loses his entire family over the buying of a worthless property, but he lets his character win out by having that property surprisingly worth millions anyway.

It's not always so clean cut however. In one of his most overlooked films "The Old Fashioned Way", Fields plays the manager of a failing theatre company who gives up his daughter, the only person who truly stood by him in order for her to marry a man of higher stature. It doesn't end on a bad note, we see Fields at his old tricks trying to petal throat tonic, you can't keep a good man down.

I suppose it's in the comedic philosophy where one can relate to Fields, it's cathartic to see him in films like "The Man on the Flying Trapeze" where he gets four parking tickets in a row, or in "It's a Gift" where he can never seem to get a good night's sleep. They are all very subtle slices of life that could drive the common man up the wall, but we basically see Fields strive through it, he tries to complain but no one listens, mostly because there's always someone who complains by to him louder.

To see Fields succeed is one of the joys of his films, because so much is set up against him. I can most commonly see a link to the films of Buster Keaton, who also plays a character commonly at odds with the unfair universe.

There is of course those special little moments I see most often in old films where the stars can't bare to show their stuff. A particular special moment for me happens in "The Old Fashioned Way", where Fields takes time from the plot of the film to show off his juggling skills. This was the first time watching this film and it was delightful just to see his juggle, there isn't any special camera techniques, it holds in one take on Fields as he mesmerizes us with his talents. I don't laugh so much in these scenes as a smile, it's the same feeling I get when I watch Harpo play the harp or Chico play the piano, or Chaplin doing the famous dancing of the roles. These men came from Vaudeville, entertaining people was in their blood, they loved to show it off, and it was a treat just to watch.

So short answer, yes W.C. Fields is funny, for the record the film of mention in the gentleman's unflattering piece, "Never Give a Sucker an Even Break" is a gem of a movie, it may not have a comprehensive plot, but Fields never worried about that. He understood movies was able to do just about anything he wanted, including jumping out of an airplane to chase after some whiskey only to wind up on a mountain paradise with a lovely young woman who has never seen a man before.

I don't know much about the personal life of Fields only that he spent most of his life battling alcoholism, alcohol always played a large part in his films and his characters. What I know of Fields is what I have seen on screen, he was a special comedic voice, he seemed to go at his own pace, sometimes it was slow and steady, and sometimes it was rapid fire, either way you saw him, he made a special place in movie history, today they just aren't as good.