You Can't Cheat an Honest Man

source: You Can't Cheat an Honest Man

Making a Comeback to the Screen After a Three Year Break to Rest and Retain His Control Over Drink, W.C. Fields Finds Himself Able, Although Maybe a Step Slow, to Perform and Write the Script. While Not At the Top of His Game, Fields Manages Quite Well as Scribe and His Acerbic Way of Charming Audiences. He Brings Along Edgar Bergen with Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd, the Two Wooden Dummies. Fields Had Kept His Hand In on the Radio During His Movie Break and had Cultivated a Running Feud on the Airwaves that Proved Quite Popular. So it was Only Natural that They Help W.C. with His Return to the Silver Screen. They Did Prove Adequate and Perhaps Made the Picture More Popular with the Kiddies and the Circus Backdrop Also Helped with the Younger Set. W.C. Fields Humor was Strictly Speaking "Adult" in Nature, So This was a Bit Different but a Good Contrast. Some May Say that This is Diluted Fields, but Considering the Aging Comedian was on Shaky Ground, it Didn't Hurt the Film that Much. The Film as a Whole has Enough of Fields to Make it Worthy of His Other Work. The Ping Pong Match, the Circus Shenanigans, and the Wordsmith Fields Fills the Film with Puns, Odd Sounding Words and Phrases, and Some Delirious Sight Gags, Like the Alligator Pit. The Movie was a Good Comeback for Fields, Although One Could Sense there Weren't Many Good Years Left as the Decade Closed. In the Thirties Though, W.C. Fields was a Top Draw and a Genius of the Genre. Note…W.C. Fields made one more bona fide classic…The Bank Dick (1940).

This is quite a hilarious W.C. Fields movie. It's also the first time he's teamed on screen with Edgar Bergen and his dummy, Charlie McCarthy, after previously doing so on radio. Their feud on that audio medium was very popular and it seemed to also work on the big screen as they would subsequently appear in another movie together. Some scenes may make one cringe like when Charlie dons blackface but in this case, it seems to be to keep from being recognized and not because of something against a certain race. Speaking of whom, this was another of Eddie Anderson's film appearances during a time he was also playing Rochester on Jack Benny's radio program. He doesn't get to be too funny but his reaction to possibly being W.C. Fields' victim involving an elephant gun was a pretty funny one for him. Bergen's other dummy, Mortimer Snerd, also appears and is also pretty funny. The plot about Fields' daughter's possible marriage to a rich man isn't much but does provide some highlights of W.C.'s low-income circus man mixing with High Society of which one of the women in that latter group is afraid of snakes to the point of fainting at the mention of one! There's so much that's funny here but I'll just say You Can't Cheat an Honest Man is highly recommended and leave it at that! P.S. I watched this on YouTube along with an intro and outro uploaded from TCM hosted by Ben Mankiewicz and Dr. Harriet Fields, W.C.'s granddaughter.

Edgar Bergen, the ventriloquist, was a big star on radio. This film shows why he and Charlie McCarthy were so popular. Building on their radio feud with the great W.C. Fields, Bergen and McCarthy add their unique talents to this inspired lunacy. Favorite line: Fields has thrown McCarthy into a pit of a dozen snarling alligators. McCarthy: Help me, Bergen! Get me out! Bergen: Which one are you in? McCarthy: Who cares? Get me out of all of them! If you are an old-time radio fan, check out this little

I'm a big fan of classic films. I count, "A Nous La Liberte", "The Third Man" and "Vertigo" as some my very favourites. But, classic films are a product of their time and that means that, occasionally, they feature moments that are awkward or just plain offensive. Those moments are often the product of views and values that we, in 2019, have for the most part, thankfully, discarded. For the most part. Ahem. Now, I know there's a counter argument always lurking in the grass somewhere that says, "Well, those were the times." I've used that same argument with my girlfriend whenever she has expressed her dislike of sexism in an old black and white film. Ah, but how would you feel if you were the target and a historically discriminated against demographic? That brings me to WC Fields' film from 1939 called, "You Can't Cheat an Honest Man." 1939...the beginning of WWII; pre-Martin Luther King and his transformative effect on American society; pre-second wave feminism. In other words, a long, long time ago. So, when Edgar Bergen applied shoe polish to his dummy Charlie McCarthy's face just so the wooden puppet could make a joke about being all "...blacked out", well, that, for me, landed about as well as a turd in a bowl of soup. WC Fields plays Larson E. Whipsnade (get it?), the owner of a circus up to its' eyeballs in debt. Edgar Bergen and Charlie play an act in the failing circus as well as Whipsnade's constant irritants. Much of the very slim, barely plotted, 79 minute running time is set at the circus and chronicles the raucous battle between Larson E. and the Bergen-McCarthy twosome. And some of it is funny. And some of it is not. The highlight being when Larson E. feeds Charlie to an alligator. Ha! A raucous game of ping pong, late in the film, is also a delight. This was the first time around for me in the deliriously bent world of WC Fields. His cantankerous, cynic, con-man character, who spits out venom at pretty much everyone he interacts with, was, mostly, a delight. His nihilism is in your face. There's no sugar coating it for him. He is who he is and too bad for you. He taps into the cynic in all of us who can easily remember a day - month? year? - where we, too, came to the sorry conclusion that life was a sham and adopted a "to hell with all of it" attitude. That brings us back to the blackface scene which just sunk any goodwill or kindness I'd otherwise show towards the flim for its' missteps and shortcomings. Slight, occasionally bright, with offensive material that taints the entire movie.

Actually, for the short number of years W C Fields worked in Hollywood, this is one of his better films. It features Edgar Bergen & his dummies Charlie McCarthy & Mortimer Snerd. All these stars have good sequences. The idea of getting these stars together came from the old time radio show feuds they were having on the radio. If your into old time radio, get a hold of some of these classics. The film itself is ghost written by Fields about a crafty circus owner, Larson E. Whipsnade who is always one step ahead of bankruptcy & the law at every town he stops in. He is trying to help his daughter go to college. The best sequence is when Larson E Whipsnade is selling tickets to his shows & a couple of seedy characters give him a large bill to make change of to pay for the tickets. Whipsnade counts out the bills like he is giving them too much change by doubling the bills over. The cons don't realize this until they try to take off with the extra change. They return indignant to the ticket window because they have been shorted. Then Larson E. makes his most famous quote when refusing their refund, "Count your change before leaving the window!" The film itself is solid except for the ending which is a little fuzzy as to where the film is going from here. If it was left that way on purpose, no sequel was ever considered.

Some of the Charlie McCarthy routines are fun, especially the magic acts. Fields is typical in a flimflam man role and has a few good routines too. Starring Edgar Bergen as the romantic is hard to believe, as is watching his lips move as Charlie McCarthy talks (note that the 'b' sound is hardest for ventriloquists).

"You Can't Cheat An Honest Man" is a rather poor comedy for W.C Fields. The film has virtually no plot and few laughs. The whole production is also too restricted in its setting, being that of a circus. As in other comedies, Fields is on the run from the law and narrowly avoids trouble. The running time is 75 minutes but it felt longer to me. Reducing the film to about 62 minutes might have been an improvement. The scene involving the game of table tennis was OK, at least the sketch had a bit of zeal. Fields causing upset at some big society social gathering was quite good also. However, those scenes can't compensate for a film that really needed a stronger story and better laughs. The ending was very disappointing, in that it was abrupt and left the film unfinished. "Universal" studios gave W.C Fields better films than the above.

This has probably become Feild's most underrated film. It has a few clumsy scenes, probably the most questionable racial "jokes" (through, given the milieu, probably quite true to life), and a lot of screen time goes to Edgar and Charlie. Still, it is quite a wonderful film; and it retains the fundamental wacko universe that defines top Feilds. Some of the circus stuff is pretty amazing too, and they get a fine performance from the Lion tamer. I think the ending probably must have looked so bad in the editing room they just said the hell with it and went for the sort of non ending with Mortimer. No matter, it's a jem, and if not "A" grade W.C., it's very close.

W.C. Fields made several films that were essentially the same stories with a few variations. While I love Fields films, I am not a huge fan of these derivative tales. They are derivative but still mildly entertaining---and far from his best work. "Poppy", "The Old Fashioned Way" and "You Can't Cheat and Honest Man" all share many story elements--many. Each have Fields playing the leader of a two-bit circus or acting troop. Each has a grown daughter who Fields dotes upon. Each has Fields on the verge of bankruptcy. And, in each, the daughter faces a crisis. Because of this, even if this film is done well, it's still very familiar. Fortunately for "You Can't Cheat and Honest Man", there is one major difference that sets it apart. Because of the success of Fields and Charlie McCarthy on the radio, the folks at Universal decided to add Edger Bergen and his dummies to the movie to give it a bit of punch. Bergan's humor was quite welcome and made this film less sentimental than the two previous incarnations...and a bit funnier. Overall, it's worth seeing. However, if at all possible, try watching one of Fields' best films first to see just how good he can be with a more original story. "It's a Gift" is probably his best, though "The Bank Dick" and "You're Telling Me" are all wonderful Fields films. They are similar in that in each W.C. appears to fall on his face but by the end has become HUGELY successful, but otherwise each is very unique and better suited for his great personality.