Rent W.C. Fields: It's a Gift (1934)
3.6 of 5 from 73 ratings
1h 5min
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
- Fields plays small-town grocer Harold Bissonette – Pronounced ‘Bee-son-ay’ by his wife – who puts up with difficult customers and annoying neighbours. Bissonette has ambitions to own a California orange grove and, aided by an inheritance – and from selling his business – acquires what, on their arrival, turns out to be a worthless shack set in scrubland. Her suspicions confirmed, Mrs.. Bissonette begins to leave with their children but the land turns old to be more valuable than it looks…
- Actors:
- W.C. Fields, Kathleen Howard, Jean Rouverol, Julian Madison, Tommy Bupp
- Directors:
- Norman Z. McLeod
- Studio:
- Universal Pictures
- Genres:
- Classics
- Collections:
- Paramount's Laughing Thirties, A Brief History of Film..., Top 100 AFI Laughs, Top Films
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Reviews (2) of W.C. Fields: It's a Gift
Still entertaining - W.C. Fields: It's a Gift review by MT
In my opinion W C Fields has aged better than Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, Harold Lloyd and possibly even the Marx Bros. This is still an entertaining watch, with great sight gags and physical humour as well as decent characterisation, jokes and a surprisingly coherent plot.
1 out of 1 members found this review helpful.
Classic Fields - W.C. Fields: It's a Gift review by Steve
WC Fields used his feature films to recycle favourite sketches from his stage act, so they are inevitably episodic. This feels like his first masterpiece because his tragicomic persona crystallises perfectly. He is a timeless, suffering everyman whose plans are always thwarted. He only wants to go to California to run an orange grove...
Fields' is a middle aged man whose wife has become alien to him. He is aware that he has been left behind by a changing world. His coping strategies have made him weary and unfulfilled. There is a residual charm which is evident to the kindhearted, but looks grotesque to most. Traumatised by domesticity, he is much kinder than his times.
Like all film comedians, Fields creates a strong visual image: his cigar, white flannel suit and boater, the ruined nose. The opening episode is the funniest with his grocery store destroyed by the blind/deaf Mr. Muggles, who after wrecking the glassware, hilariously crosses the road outside untouched by the speeding traffic.
Such are the frustrating laws of the Fieldsian universe. He can see every disaster as it approaches, but is powerless to resist. All he can do is palliate with whisky and cigars. It is a standard strategy in comedy to place your protagonist in the last place he wants to be, which is exactly where his immortal alter ego lives his life.
0 out of 0 members found this review helpful.