Rent W.C. Fields: You're Telling Me! / Man on the Flying Trapeze (1935)
3.6 of 5 from 5 ratings
2h 6min
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
You’re Telling Me!
Sam Bisbee unwittingly ruins the romance between his daughter and a local society boy. When disaster befalls the demonstration of his new puncture-proof tyre, Sam takes the train home and meets the visiting Princess Lescaboura. She calls at his home town and announces hem as a hero. Bisbee is transformed into a leading citizen.
Man On The Flying TrapezeAmbrose Wolfinger lives with his wife, stepson, mother-in-low and the daughter from his first, happier marriage. He takes his first afternoon off work in twenty-five years to attend a wrestling match, on the bogus pretext that his mother-in-law has died. Floral tributes arrive at the horse and Ambrose is falsely accused of a drunken spree with his secretary. He is fired but reinstated – on more favourable terms – when his memory for clients’ details is recognized. - Actors:
- W.C. Fields, Joan Marsh, Buster Crabbe, Adrienne Ames, Louise Carter
- Directors:
- Erle C. Kenton
- Studio:
- Universal Pictures
- Genres:
- Classics, Comedy
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Reviews (1) of W.C. Fields: You're Telling Me! / Man on the Flying Trapeze
Man On the Flying Trapeze. - W.C. Fields: You're Telling Me! / Man on the Flying Trapeze review by Steve
Kathleen Howard reprises her role from It's a Gift as WC Fields' shrewish wife, but the great comic star has a more loving daughter (Mary Brian) this time around to sweeten the dish. It's a Gift was hilarious, but awfully cold. Again there is a collection of sketches built around a loose narrative. Ambrose Wolfinger just wants to go to the wrestling...
The best episode is the opener when Fields is forced down into the cellar by his wife to confront two burglars who are getting mellowly drunk on Wolfinger's applejack. Fields, the intruders and a cop end up harmonising sentimental Irish ballads together. For all of them, this is brief moment of respite seized from the hell of domesticity.
It's such a funny film because Fields' comic persona is so identifiable. His suffering is revealed so pitifully, with a sudden nervous reflex or a mumbled aside. He has grown to accept his malign fate. There's nothing he can do about it.
Fields is always doing what he is asked, however absurd. Then is admonished when the outcome proves to be unsatisfactory. He acts without complaint or hope, and then gets nailed for it. And who doesn't know how that feels?! This is my pick as his best film.
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