Man on the Flying Trapeze

.

source: Man on the Flying Trapeze

This W.C. Fields vehicle is more disciplined than NEVER GIVE A SUCKER AN EVEN BREAK (1941) but it's still, basically, a series of extended sketches (though, thankfully, there's no intrusive romantic subplot or musical interludes). Typically, the title has no meaning specific to the film to which it's attached and characters are given deliberately strange names (once again, Fields supplied the story himself under the alias Charles Bogle)! Also, as often happened with comics (notably Laurel & Hardy), plot lines of vehicles from the Silent days were reprised during the Talkie period - this particular film being a reworking of Fields' RUNNING WILD (1927). The star is here a henpecked husband (at his best when lethargically responding to his wife's agitated statement that their cellar has been broken into), a role he often played - such as in IT'S A GIFT (1934) and THE BANK DICK (1940) from the first Universal set - with a devoted daughter from a previous marriage who are resented by their new family (including Fields regulars Kathleen Howard and Grady Sutton). However, he's retained by the business firm he works for due to his remarkable memory (the film, in fact, was released in the U.K. as THE MEMORY EXPERT). The very first shot - an empty but unmade bed - is a classic, as one already knows that Fields is somewhere in the house drinking behind his wife's back. Perhaps my favorite gag involves Fields' painful scream, which happens twice during the course of the film - first, when he falls down the stairs of his own cellar and ends up sitting on a piece of wood with a nail sticking out of it and, again later, when he brags about his wrestling prowess but is promptly thrown over his opponent's shoulder when put to the test! There are, however, several other memorable sequences: the opening applejack incident in which two burglars (one of whom is Walter Brennan) get drunk on Fields' liquor, burst out into a sentimental song, and are eventually joined by a cop and the star himself (when they appear before a magistrate, it's Fields who gets thrown in jail for not possessing a license to make his own beverage!); the dinner-table scene where he drowns his wife's talking by noisily munching on a piece of toast; Fields' unique system of filing at his office; his receiving several parking-tickets in a row; the star chasing after the tyre of his car which came loose and almost getting crushed by a speeding train in the process; the all-important wrestling match (to which he sneaks off from work after lying to his boss that his mother-in-law had died - because of this, his house is soon flooded with bouquets of flowers sent in sympathy by his colleagues!) which he misses due to the mishaps described above...although, he does arrive in time to be hit with the flying body of one of the fighters! Like most Fields comedies, the film is consistently funny - with the only flaw being the occasional sag in pacing. Curiously enough, I unintentionally watched the only two Fields vehicles in which his mistress Carlotta Monti appears in quick succession! Incidentally, MAN ON THE FLYING TRAPEZE proved to be the last film to be credited to Silent comedy expert Clyde Bruckman; actually, his chronic alcoholism meant that he wasn't fit to perform his duties during much of the shooting - and, for the first and only time in his career, Fields eventually took over the directorial reins himself!

Can you imagine what "Married With Children" would have been like if Al Bundy was never allowed to trade insults with his family and instead was the constant butt of their humiliating manners? That should give you an idea of how the majority of "The Man On The Flying Trapeze" plays out. Although this role did prove W.C. Fields versatility to me, as it's completely different to the few other parts I've seen him in (here he is mild-mannered instead of blustery, and victimized instead of on top of the situation), it's also quite restrictive, and doesn't allow him many wisecracks - although the few that he does get score some solid chuckles (my favorite: "It's hard to lose your mother-in-law, isn't it?" - "Yes, it's very hard. It's almost impossible"!). His family is truly overbearing - with the exception of his sweet daughter, who is like a ray of sunshine in his gloomy life (Mary Brian is a jewel of a girl). When he FINALLY gets some payback at the end, it's too little, too late, though admittedly the final shot of the film is extremely satisfying. **1/2 out of 4.

"It's a Gift" never touched me ... WC and the direction both too frantic, nothing sticks in my memory as hilarious besides Mr. Muckle and "I don't want to lug the gum home, "Send It!!" ... WC was too much of a heavyweight to take on Baby Leroy so it's hard to enjoy those scenes ... Bill was better as victim than as persecutor. "The Bank Dick" I wince at, it tries too hard (its too-cute incidental music behind WC's antics, the Franklin Pangborns and Shemp Howards to liven it up etc.) and sorry to say a WC puffed-up and inexpressive, senility-by-way-of-the-bottle having crept in. By this point I think he was spending half the time in a sanitarium. "The Bank Dick" isn't the best of Bill, folks. Bill's real genius as shown in this movie was his subtlety in patiently weathering every misfortune, and they all befall him. Oliver Hardy would have soon gone ballistic, Edgar Kennedy would have done the "slow-burn," but WC, with just an apolgetic mumble, is more interesting than either as we watch his good-nature tested. The ensemble is great: Oscar Apfel as his boss is this strange cartoon boss, Kathleen Howard as WC's wife has a presence here that is unforgettable, the memorable Michael Viseroff as cellmate for Bill (... "yes, that's in your favor (!)...") ... It's as if the odd ways of WC rubbed off on the rest of the cast, a possibility since he basically directed the film. It's slow-drip torture for WC all the way, How much will he take? ... One of those films with nothing wasted; like me you might find you remember practically every line in every scene. Perfect. Well, maybe the ending is a little trite. I taped this from the late show in 1982. You mean there was a maternity ward scene cut out? I can't wait to see this and any other missing stuff from this gem of a film. Eleven stars.

Burglars singing in the cellar scene is hysterical. "What are they singing?" Fields asked his distraught wife. The breakfast scene where his wife reads poetry while Fields finds nothing to eat. "And best of all," she declares, "it has no punctuation." Fields in jail with a killer. "I had three wives, and this is the first one I've ever killed." "That's very much in your favor," notes Fields. This film is wonderful. It is a shame it's not available on video.

I think that It's A Gift is one of the funniest movies of all time and maybe I was expecting too much with this movie that I had never heard of. There were some funny scenes but they lasted too long and there weren't enough of them. The scene with the singing burglars in the cellar was funny to begin with but it went on too long. Grady Sutton who is usually funny was just a miserable person in this. The lady who played Field's wife was great and is the perfect nagging wife. I am glad I saw it but I don't care to see it again.

This is one film that most W C Fields Fans would want to buy--if it were available on video from Universal, the video source that has the deepest, darkest vaults in the video business. What Universal is not releasing (among many other Fields films) is a saga of Fields in his "Henpecked Husband" role as an office manager who has the answers to everything in the interior of his massive roll top desk. He is unappreciated by his wife, mother-in-law, and do nothing step-son, but loved by his grown daughter--a reoccuring theme in many of his movies. All he wants to do is take the afternoon off to go to the wrestling match, and being a loyal employee who does not want to offend his boss, thinks of an excuse to leave for the day. From here his day goes downhill. Does he ever see the match? Try to turn on the television and see this film, if it ever shows up on the major film "networks". Or, just pray for Universal to release this film on video. It's a great Fields film. Don't miss it if you can!

Despite his marvelous comic con-men, who always outwits the rubes and dolts about him, there is a side of W.C. Fields that few people ever notice: he is usually a hopeless, henpecked husband when he is married. His Ambrose Wolfinger (in MAN ON THE FLYING TRAPEZE) is probably the most helpless married man that he ever portrayed. Ambrose has actually been married (presumably more happily) to a previous wife, who has died. But they had a little girl (now grown up) named Hope (Mary Bryan) who is his one total ally in the family. His second wife, Leona Wolfinger, née Nesselrode (Kathleen Howard) is strict and shrewish with him. And his mother in law and brother in law Claude (Grady Sutton, playing a totally disreputable liar, trouble-maker, leech, and thief for a change) make his hell total. In this film Fields is controlled by events and people - he rarely shows any of the spunk and cleverness that his Great McGonigal or Egbert Souse or Larson E. Whipsnade show. He tries to get two burglars charged in court, but they were drinking apple jack that he had allowed to ferment, so the idiot crabby judge ignores the burglary and charges Fields with violating the prohibition laws! He tries to see a wrestling match, but is delayed by traffic problems, a tire that runs away from him, a set of traffic cops, and arrives too late to see the match, only to be knocked down by one of the wrestlers being thrown on him. To make the situation even more absurd, he did not realize this ticket was stolen by Claude, who seeing him lying on the ground sneers at him as "Drunk again!" He is also harried by his boss (Lucien Littlefield) at work, and he has to lie to get a miserable afternoon off to see the match (he says his mother-in-law died). When the truth comes out, Littlefield (on his own - as he subsequently regrets) fires him. This is how it goes throughout the film. Except for Mary Bryan and for his secretary (Carlotta Monti, who has a nice moment at Littlefield's expense), all of the characters use and abuse Fields. He is only finally aroused when Claude tries to slap Hope, and Fields defends her, knocking out Claude. But even after that he still seems lost regarding what to do to pick up his life. The film is funny - witness the business about Field's filing system at the office (he's a memory expert). When the actual head of the firm (Littlefield's boss - Oscar Apfel) tries to find things without Fields around, he goes nuts with the system. Littlefield tries to defend his action, only to be told by Monti that he has libeled her by suggesting Fields and she were out together at the match. Littlefield is then informed that if he can't get Fields back he'd better start looking for a new job (in the depression). Howard's role is curious. Like her performance in IT'S A GIFT, she is extremely strict and suspicious. At one point, when Fields is getting ready to go down and check for burglars, she is begging for him to hurry and not to forget his gun. He takes the gun out, and accidentally fires it. High strung by the situation, the shooting scares Howard into a faint - Fields looks at her and with a slight trace of hope in his voice he asks, "Are you dead?" Yet, he did marry her, and at the end, when stuck alone with her mother and brother (who won't look for work), she seems to realize that - for better or worse - Ambrose was a good provider. In the end she is reunited with him and with her step-daughter. It is a good comedy, and if it lacks the polish of THE BANK DICK and IT'S A GIFT and THE OLD FASHIONED WAY it is still worth watching.

Comedy is funny. I mean that it is odd in addition to being amusing. You can laugh and also wonder about why and maybe even laugh at that. Film comedy is different than other comedy, say written comedy. My own notions of film are that everything essential was worked out in the thirties when competing concepts elbowed each other and we ended up with the rough cinematic vocabulary we have now. Nowhere is this more true than with straight humor. Since that time, we've developed a complex notion of the humors of irony, but what I'm talking about here is people directly depicting funny stuff. So when you go back, you find a few innovators, something like the few jazz inventors of the 50s. What they did is pure by retrospective definition. Going back helps you discover yourself: are you a Keaton man? Chaplin, Arbuckle, Marx, Laurel? W C Fields is one that you should experience. I liked his "Sucker" movie the best because it was his last and most mature; and the story dealt with him as Fields and the studios telling him he wasn't funny. Here is his best early film where he does his thing. It is in the vaudeville tradition of being a bunch of loosely connected skits. But it is highly cinematic humor, just not the sight gags you see with the others. It depends all on timing. The first sequence is the best. Our man is preparing for bed. He sneaks drinks while his witchy wife complains (in a separate bed, as this is post-code). The key joke here is him taking his socks off. If you haven't seen it, I know this sounds odd, but Fields taking his socks off is hilarious. It takes forever. Then they hear intruders below and he puts his socks back on, taking almost as long. It is a truly precious lesson in investing in laughter. It isn't explosive. It isn't particularly subtle or clever. It is just reality bent in a complex rubato that we have to take the time to relish. Terrific. I watched that one scene several times. Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.