Full disclosure, W.C. Fields\u2019 characters as the hen-pecked but thoroughly disreputable husband represents in my opinion one of the pillars of the self-respecting American husband.\u00a0 Although constantly set upon by his wife and family he refuses to knuckle and become bovinely domesticated.\u00a0 Sometimes he\u2019ll pretend to bow to convention for the sake of a short period of marital tranquility but we know that at any moment he might use the excuse of his mother-in-law\u2019s spurious death as an excuse to skip work and go to the wrestling matches or throw away an inheritance by buying worthless land while following the dream of becoming an orange rancher.\u00a0 It is this absurd and quixotic aspect of Fields\u2019s characters that convinces me to excuse some of the infuriatingly boring routines that he loads into his movies.\u00a0 And several of these routines are on maddening display in \u201cYou\u2019re Telling Me!\u201d\u00a0 I\u2019ll skip over the recurring gag of a drunken Fields getting his head and arms tangled in the ornamental ropes on his living room doorway drapery.\u00a0 That is a mere couple of minutes of idiocy.\u00a0 But at the climax of the film there is an eight-minute stretch of Fields attempting to drive a golf ball.\u00a0 A lesser man would have turned it off after a few minutes.\u00a0 But I soldiered on.\u00a0 I had to see how Fields\u2019 invention of bulletproof car tires would bring about the story\u2019s happy ending.<\/p>\n
I write this introduction to show the reader that I am aware that \u201cYou\u2019re Telling Me!\u201d is not a faultless masterpiece.\u00a0 On the contrary, it\u2019s a W.C. Fields movie which means it is a combination of awful physical comedy, brilliant verbal quips and tragicomical storytelling.\u00a0 I am also aware that a taste for W.C. Fields is not a universal trait.\u00a0 Far from it.\u00a0 But being a true believer, I feel it\u2019s my duty to advocate for the great man.<\/p>\n
The premise of the story is that Fields\u2019 character Sam Bisbee is trying to prove to his long-suffering wife Bessie that in addition to being a drunk he is also a great inventor.\u00a0 He is on the brink of demonstrating his 1000% puncture-proof automobile tire to the National Tire Company.\u00a0 At the same time Sam\u2019s daughter, Pauline is in love with Bob, the son of the wealthy Murchison family that live on the other side of the tracks.\u00a0 Bob\u2019s mother is played by Kathleen Howard who played Fields\u2019 wife in two of his other great movies, \u201cIt\u2019s a Gift\u201d and \u201cThe Man on the Flying Trapeze.\u201d\u00a0 She comes to visit the Bisbee house to forbid the romance but is delighted to find that Bessie is from an old money family from the Old South.\u00a0 But immediately afterward Sam shows up and showcases enough boorishness to outrage Mrs. Murchison and in reaction to this rejection Pauline demands that Bob and his mother leave and never come back.\u00a0 Now that Sam has angered and disappointed both his wife and daughter, he is determined to make good on his promise as an inventor to make the family fortune and thereby restore relations between his daughter and the Murchisons.<\/p>\n
We are given a convincing demonstration of his invention in his work shop.\u00a0 He fires a pistol at the tire and catches the rebounding bullet in a baseball glove.\u00a0 Now he puts four of these tires on his car and drives into the city to demonstrate it to the Board of the National Tire Company.\u00a0 Sam parks his car in front of the office building, in a no parking zone, and heads up to the Board room.\u00a0 The building attendants push his car down the block and apparently called the police to come and take it away.\u00a0 The police arrive and park in front of the building and exit the scene to meet up with the attendants down the block.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile Sam brings the Board down to the front of the office building and apparently not recognizing that the police car isn\u2019t his own he proceeds to shoot out the tires of the police car.\u00a0 The Board laugh mockingly at his failed demonstration and the police show up and give chase at the sight of their car being used for target practice.\u00a0 Sam successfully flees as the scene ends.<\/p>\n
Next, we see Sam on the train headed back to his home.\u00a0 He has written a suicide not to Pauline explaining that he can\u2019t endure the humiliation that his failure will spark.\u00a0 Now we are subjected to another long annoying sequence of Sam attempting to kill himself by drinking a bottle of iodine.\u00a0 He finally gives it up after seeing a passing graveyard next to the train.<\/p>\n
Now we mee the Princess Lescaboura who is travelling on the train in a private room.\u00a0 Sam wanders into her room accidentally when a servant leaves the door open and he assumes it\u2019s the bathroom.\u00a0 The princess had just applied iodine to a cut on her hand and seeing the bottle Sam assumes she is about to commit suicide so he recounts his own misfortunes and suicide attempt to dissuade her from the supposed suicide.<\/p>\n
She is touched by his mistaken concern for her safety and is also sympathetic to the pathetic personal problems he is in.\u00a0 He says goodbye to her not knowing that she is royalty, thinking she is a young woman named Marie and invites her to visit his family if she ever stops in his town.<\/p>\n
Incidentally while he was talking to the princess a couple of old biddies from his town see him talking to a young woman and spread gossip at home that he is having an affair.\u00a0 And the story mutates until by the time he reaches home everyone is convinced that he has been involved in a drunken debauch with a stripper.\u00a0 When Sam reaches town, every woman he meets upbraids him as a masher and every man in town slaps him on the back and wants to hear his story.<\/p>\n
When he realizes that his wife will want to kill him when he gets home, he tries to come up with a gift that will assuage her anger.\u00a0 One of his friends suggests a pet parakeet.\u00a0 Sam replies that it\u2019ll have to be bigger than that.\u00a0 In the next scene we see him walking down the main street holding a rope around the neck of an ostrich that doesn\u2019t seem happy about the arrangement.<\/p>\n
In the meantime, the princess has arranged for a visit to Sam\u2019s town.\u00a0 The mayor and all the leading citizens meet her at the train station and she tells them that she wants to go to the home of her friend Sam Bisbee, the man who saved her life \u201cduring the war.\u201d\u00a0 Mrs. Murchison bends over backward to please the princess and the crowd heads for Sam\u2019s house.\u00a0 Along the way they find Sam and the ostrich and after the princess assures a drunk Sam that he is a hero they head for his home.\u00a0 Eventually the princess arranges for a party to be given at Sam\u2019s home in her honor and catered by the Murchisons.\u00a0 The princess provides enough nonsense about how important Sam is back in her country that Mrs. Murchison announces the engagement of her son to Pauline.\u00a0 And she arranges that Sam will perform the honor of dedicating the new golf course in town by hitting the first drive.\u00a0 This gives us that agonizing eight-minute dose of torture before the National Tire Company president shows up and offers to buy Sam\u2019s invention for $20,000.\u00a0 Cutting him off before he can accept, the princess gets into abiding war and the president is forced to offer a million dollars plus a royalty to Sam on each tire sold.\u00a0 Now the movie ends with Bisbees and Murchisons driving off to a party with the princess and Sam preparing for a two-week drinking bout with his friends.<\/p>\n
As you can see, the movie consists of ridiculous events and absurd situations.\u00a0 But some of the dialog is inspired.\u00a0 My favorite situation is when Princess Lescaboura meets Sam\u2019s wife.\u00a0 Bessie is confused and honored by the princess\u2019s friendliness but when the princess exclaims, \u201cYou must be the happiest woman in the world.\u201d\u00a0 All Bessie can confusedly say is, \u201cIs my husband dead?\u201d\u00a0 And that encapsulates the magic of this movie.\u00a0 Sam is the quintessence of the American husband.\u00a0 His refusal to conform to his wife\u2019s opinions on acceptable behavior and the suffering they both experience because of the conflict provides a funhouse mirror version of the real-life war between the sexes.<\/p>\n
One small personnel note.\u00a0 Bob Murchison is played by Buster Crabbe.\u00a0 Here he is a young and very green actor that would one day thrill us as children when he played Flash Gordon and Buck Rodgers.<\/p>\n
So, do I recommend this movie?\u00a0 It\u2019s hard to say.\u00a0 If you cannot get through the bad physical comedy bits that are ridiculously long then no, you will not enjoy this movie.\u00a0 But if you can, then you will be rewarded by some truly inspired comedic moments.\u00a0 Maybe the solution is to fast forward through those bits.\u00a0 But that is the coward\u2019s way out.\u00a0 It\u2019s up to you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Full disclosure, W.C. Fields\u2019 characters as the hen-pecked but thoroughly disreputable husband represents in my opinion one of the pillars of the self-respecting American husband.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[239,238,237],"tags":[2892,2891,948],"class_list":["post-13426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","category-classic-movie-reviews","category-reviews","tag-buster-crabbe","tag-kathleen-howard","tag-w-c-fields"],"yoast_head":"\n