Rent W.C. Fields: The Bank Dick / Follow the Boys (1944)
3.2 of 5 from 73 ratings
2h 54min
- General info
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- Synopsis:
The Bank Dick
Fields, as local tippler’ and henpecked husband – Egbert Sorse, accidentally foils a band raid and is rewarded with a job as guard. After advising his prospective son in law, a bank teller, to borrow funds in order to buy shares, Souse has to sabotage a visiting bank examiner. A second bank raid crescendos in a spectacular car chase.
Follow The BoysRejected for military service, a movie star concentrates all his efforts on organizing shows for the troops, endangering his marriage. Follow the Boys pays tribute to the artists who gave their services during Word War Two. Highlights include Orson Welles and Marline Dietrich performing a magic act and W.C. Fields in the pool routine he had first presented in 1903. - Actors:
- W.C. Fields, Shemp Howard, Una Merkel, Vera Zorina, Grace McDonald
- Directors:
- Edward Sutherland, Edward Cline
- Studio:
- Universal Pictures
- Genres:
- Classics, Comedy
- Collections:
- Paramount's Laughing Thirties
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Reviews (1) of W.C. Fields: The Bank Dick / Follow the Boys
Review of The Bank Dick. - W.C. Fields: The Bank Dick / Follow the Boys review by Steve
WC Fields' last classic is a return to the format of his best comedies of the early thirties; a series of sketches loosely tied to a single theme. Here Fields is Egbert Sousé (pronounced Sous-ay) a docile underdog who is an outcast in his own family. He keeps getting offered jobs, initially as the director of a film, and then as a bank detective.
Naturally Fields plays his famous persona, an old fashioned man traumatised by domesticity and the cynicism of contemporary life. He wrote the script which is fertile with his wild, Fieldsian flights of language: 'Don't be a luddy-duddy! Don't be a mooncalf! Don't be a jabbernowl!'
It's among the eight comedies which Fields made as a writer-actor which are the core of his appeal as an auteur. This isn't quite the equal of the great man's early talkies. And there is a brief, insulting role for a black actor. Arguably everyone is a distorted caricature in this world, but, it's still deplorable.
There are plenty of decent gags and an enjoyable silent film style car chase. Fields was getting old and heavier. This doesn't enhance the poignancy of the role like it does with many of the great comedians. Fields' character always was tragicomic; a little man in a small town who suffers a life of injustice and humiliation on behalf of us all.
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