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Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Snowy Fields, and Sennett Adrift


The Fatal Glass Of Beer (1933) Leaves Showmen Cold

The most oft-repeated pan of this W.C. Fields short came from a North Carolina exhibitor, J.J. Medford, whose 430 seat Orpheum Theatre was/is located in Oxford, a small berg northeast of Durham. Medford lent prolific and unsparing voice to Motion Picture Herald's "What The Picture Did For Me" column. He didn't mind chopping tall timber from major companies, thus putdown in plain words of Metro's Laughing Boy, WB's Mystery Of The Wax Museum, many others. Medford spoke for showmen at the low end who had to live with patron disdain over dog movies. He'd fling red ink back at Paramount and Mack Sennett for rottenness that was The Fatal Glass Of Beer: "This is the worst comedy we have played from any company this season. No story, no acting, and as a whole has nothing." Medford's indictment would forever-after speak for 1933 response to The Fatal Glass Of Beer, it having been quoted in every Fields bio I've seen and certainly any discussion of a short called a stinker by most everyone recovering from initial view. So how do we account for maverick few who'd call The Fatal Glass Of Beer an enduring masterpiece of comedy?


Bill Presents Old Boss Sennett With a Special Academy Award
The story was Bill's. He'd put it on for the Earl Carroll Vanities and introduce what became a spread-among-schoolboys catch-phrase: It Ain't A Fit Night Out For Man Nor Beast. Fields beat that like a rug in the short, and many called him monotonous for it, but as Bill told producer Sennett, the idea was to put what he considered funny on the screen, and worry less about the audience. That naturally left Mack skittish, a condition made more so when the Fatal Glass was poured. Had Fields blown a fuse? His last, The Dentist, laid them in aisles, but this would bark like the bulldog of Sennett credits, long missing from Beer prints, but happily restored to element used for The Mack Sennett Blu-Ray CollectionThe Fatal Glass Of Beer was to Fields' mind a put-on, a mockery of Yukon melodrama faked out with stage convention dating to the 19th century, but maybe that was too far back for 1933 auds not born when Bill noted foolishness of old styles. To those younger, it was just old as in not funny.


Variety gave Fatal Glass the frost, but Film Daily understood: "Clever process work and many amusing gags are part of the riot of laughter," said the trade's 6/3/33 review. Did it need sophistication and years' exposure to 10-20-30 stagecraft to "get" Bill's humor here? Clearly yes, but even Fields had to admit, to himself if not others, that comedy aimed for a mass public must be more accessible. He'd not go so far out again till 40's haywiring of Never Give A Sucker An Even Break. Modern viewers are of course even less familiar with conventions Fields was spoofing, so The Fatal Glass Of Beer still has its hill to climb. I can but imagine how the thing played to college crowds during Fields-maniacal days of the 60/70's, where it had much circulation thanks to prints easily rented (generally at $10 per day) or bought (Blackhawk sold Beer at relative bargains in 8 or 16mm). I admit to liking The Fatal Glass Of Beer more with each visit. It is Fields walking the wire and maybe falling, but for some of his admirers, this is right up there with his most accomplished work.

Greenbriar highly recommends The Mack Sennett Collection from Flicker Alley, a Blu-Ray set of fifty comedies which includes The Fatal Glass Of Beer. Most all of comic luminaries from the silent and early sound era are here. It's just about the best assemblage of clowning so-far offered to home viewing, truly a one-stop for slapstick.

9 Comments:

Blogger lmshah said...

John,

I've always felt that you can pretty much separate the population into those who "get" THE FATAL GLASS OF BEER and those who don't. I've always loved it, and have seen it both kill and completely confuse audiences, but when the audience gets it, it really kills.

RICHARD M ROBERTS

10:55 AM  
Blogger Kevin K. said...

Fields was decades ahead of his time, and this short proves it. It kind of reminds me of Laurel & Hardy's "A Perfect Day," where a catchphrase -- in the latter's case, "Goodbye! Goodbye!" -- is beaten into the ground, yet gets funnier each time it's spoken. Neither movie has a story, either -- just a series of gags to justify their running time. But they're both hilarious.

1:02 PM  
Blogger Michael said...

I've always loved it and always understood what it was aiming for, but maybe that was because the "mellerdrammer" was still a standard sort of stage spoof in the 70s (I was the villain in one in high school, and contributed a couple of new gags-- when I was run over by a train at the end, we came back from blackout to see two sheets covering my remains, one on each side of the track). Anyway, it's a hoot and "It's not a fit night out..." is a standard line during wintertime here.

1:32 PM  
Blogger John McElwee said...

Dan Mercer contemplates a Langdon influence and recalls a college showing of "The Fatal Glass Of Beer" (but where was I that night, Dan?):


As with many comics or, if you will, "clowns," W. C. Fields found his funny bone touched in unusual ways by the peculiar genius of Harry Langdon. The mistimed gags or gags without denouement, which typified the Langdon technique, as well as the many oddities of the Langdon comedy universe, are all on display in "The Fatal Glass of Beer." This was too obviously Fields' attempt to replicate the Langdon style. Perhaps it might even be considered an homage, as the French critics would put it. In particular, consider the synthetic snow dashed into the face of Fields to ornament the line, "T'aint a fit night out for man or beast," or how Fields flinches upon the last repetition, when he is not hit with the snow. Pure Langdon. Having watched this minor comic masterpiece in an ancient gymnasium crowded with impressionable college students in the early '70s, I can assure you that it was not unappreciated. Throughout there was the mystified silence of young minds contemplating the wonders of film, no doubt glad for the experience, though not necessarily anxious to repeat it any time soon.

2:40 PM  
Blogger John McElwee said...

Donald Benson recalls a further occasion when Bill Fields spoofed stage melodramas:


Should be noted Fields took another shot at melodrama parody -- complete with fistful of snow -- in "The Old Fashioned Way" the very next year. In "Fatal Glass of Beer" Fields is dishing it out straight to the movie audience, unconcerned that we get the joke. "The Old Fashioned Way" offers Fields dishing it out to a whole town, and letting us laugh at those yokels -- and, importantly, at Fields' own misplaced grandeur.

The feature sugar-coats it with pretty period trappings (including Fields' iconic tall-hat finery), a dash of sentiment (again, Fields plays improbable cupid to his treasured daughter and a decent, non-Fieldsian young man), and lots of context to cue the moviegoing audience.

"The Drunkard", written as an earnest melodrama, was restaged for laughs in LA and became a hit. Bits of the show and its original cast were offered as a play within the movie, allowing for backstage bits and audience reactions to provide broad winks.

We also have an endless parlor rendition of "Gathering Up the Shells" by an untalented widow. What saves it from being merely cruel is that we're watching Fields suffer through verse after verse -- comic karma for the con man. I've seen that scene play like gangbusters.

Even though the movie allows him to swindle and outwit assorted rubes and kick Baby Leroy (remarkably gently, considering), he's made palatable not only by his soft spot but by the fact he's not infallible. Even his moment of glory as a juggler ends with a tomato.

7:25 PM  
Blogger radiotelefonia said...

And tomorrow is National Tango Day... the moment to review all of Gardel films for Paramount.

9:43 PM  
Blogger coolcatdaddy said...

Another little seen film that makes fun of older stage conventions is "The Villain Still Pursued Her" (1940) with Buster Keaton. Like "Fatal Glass of Beer", you either get it or you don't.

I happened to catch it on YouTube and found it wonderfully charming and funny - I'd like to see it in a proper dvd release.

This was an indie distributed by RKO. Does Warners have the rights to this now? It would be a good one for their MOD Warner Archive offerings.

9:54 PM  
Blogger aldi said...

I've always thought this one of Fields' most hilarious shorts. It leaves me helpless with laughter every time I view it. A true masterpiece of comedy.

8:16 AM  
Blogger John McElwee said...

Dan Mercer answers my question of yesterday:


John--

I don't know where you were, if you weren't there.

But does that query mean that it wasn't one of your showings?

But you're probably right. I have the ripening recollection now that "The Fatal Glass of Beer" was one of several Fields' shorts being shown together--perhaps even the group from the "W. C. Fields Festival"--and that it was indeed at our alma mater, just not at that venue or with your participation. The other shorts went over well and the good will carried over to "The Fatal Glass of Beer." The audience wanted to like it, recognizing "T'ainta fit night out" as a laugh line and treating it as such, at least the first couple of times. Fields was hip and no one wanted to look as though he wasn't in on the joke. After a few minutes, though, the laughter faded away as they just sat there, seemingly dumbfounded and waiting for a clue as to what was going on.

Some pictures come to life with an audience. I guess some also die.


Reply From John:

Dan, the show I did with Fields in 1972, where you helped with music, was "The Dentist," along with the 1925 "Phantom Of The Opera" and "Helpmates" w/ Laurel and Hardy. The only other Fields I ran at college was "Mississippi" a year later in 1973. You were at LRC for two years ahead of me, and that's probably when the "Festival" package ran.

12:47 PM  

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