You're Telling Me!

In the few W. C. Fields movies that I've seen, he doesn't disappoint. I can now add to that "You're Telling Me!", wherein he plays an optometrist-inventor whose daughter's marriage plans get complicated by her fiance's mother's snobbish attitude. The protagonist's attempt to show his latest invention to some execs further complicates things. More zaniness follows.

It's not any sort of profound movie, and doesn't try to be. It's just funny. Fields, despite his personal problems, always managed to be entertaining. You're sure to like this one.

You're Tellling Me finds W.C. Fields pitted against the world again, the immediate world and the outside world. And Fields fights it with the weapons of his choice, rye or gin. You're Telling Me actually does get a bit serious for a while.

He's Sam Bisbee in this film, ne'er do well optometrist and full time henpecked husband of Louise Carter and father of Joan Marsh. Joan would like to marry Buster Crabbe who's the son of the town's leading snob Kathleen Howard, but it looks hopeless.

Fields's one love besides his family and booze is inventing things. He actually may have something in a puncture proof tire. But in a demonstration where he shoots the tires of a police car it gets him in some trouble.

Here's actually where this Fields comedy takes a serious turn. He's actually contemplating suicide on the way back home on the commuter train, but then seeing a young lady Adrienne Ames in distress and contemplating the same thing, he talks her and ironically himself out of it. She turns out to be his guardian angel in many ways and turns the tide for new friend socially and economically.

This was first the first film Fields did with Kathleen Howard. Someone at Paramount must have seen something because the following year they were teamed as husband and wife in It's A Gift. She became Fields's Margaret Dumont in that one.

You're Telling Me is the film where Bill Fields got do his golf routine which is almost as famous as his pool shark specialty. It comes at the end of the film where a contrite town who just thought of him as the town drunk, now asks him to open their new country club. It's still holds very well today and a source of amusement for duffers everywhere.

In fact the whole film is as amusing as it was when it premiered in 1934. The comedy of W.C. Fields is timeless.

Well, what did W.C. Fields ever do that was bad? Even in lesser works, he's still at least interesting to watch. You're Telling Me is his second or third best of all those I've seen. The opening sequence, the suicide sequence, and the ostrich sequence are its highlights. The golf sequence might be counted, too, but, if you've seen the short film The Golf Specialist, the one in You're Telling Me is less perfect. For one thing, Fields plays one of his nicer characters in this one. He's rather good on the dramatic side, actually. I liked the scene where he tries to convince the princess not to kill herself very much. Fields showed some true range there. Anyway, as most Fields fans know, the Great Man had two basic characters: the hen-pecked husband and the flim-flam man. In The Golf Specialist, Fields is a flim-flam man, and he needs to be quite mean-spirited to play that role. The nice character from You're Telling Me seems out of place being cruel to the caddy, no matter if the caddy deserves it or not. Also, the caddy and the woman watching Fields were much funnier in the short film than in here. I suppose if I hadn't have seen The Golf Specialist just recently, the golf sequence in You're Telling Me would have seemed a lot better. Still, the film is certainly worth a 9/10. See it if you get the chance.

It's not often I'll thank a TV network, but Turner Classic Movies deserves heartfelt praise for broadcasting the entire Fields canon this May & June. YOU'RE TELLING ME! has many, many hilarious setpieces and throwaway bits of business - but you'd expect that from William Claude. What might surprise you is his delicate touch when pathos and tenderness are called for. The scene on the train where a despondent Fields, playing struggling eccentric inventor Sam Bisbee, accidentally meets a travelling Princess and tries to talk her out of 'suicide' (she had no such plans...but HE did, in a moment of despair) nearly brought this cynic to tears. It's not the heavy drama of the scene that affects the viewer so much as Fields' flawless playing of it. Plot contrivance it may be, but the easy, simple grace he brings to his line readings - the small, almost imperceptible shadings of wistfulness and regret in his voice, facial expressions & body language - all give testimony to this brilliant comic actor's mastery of craft, and his ability to draw water from the well of his own loneliness. Don't misunderstand; this is a side-splitting comedy. Much of the comedy is purely visual; all of it is unforgettable. But NEVER short-count WC Fields, or confuse him with an impressionist's caricature. Where other clowns tried their damndest to make you laugh till it hurts, Fields knew his gift was to create a character forever set-upon and assaulted by a blithe, uncaring parade determined to pass him by - a man who hurt till all you can do is laugh. Well, you'll laugh all through this 65-minute model of timing and economy; but watching Fields trampled underfoot again, warily rising to his feet with no higher expectation than a brief, sweet respite before his next inevitable shellacking from the fates and furies, you might just get an idea of why they called him 'The Great Man'. Much obliged, TCM.

It's amazing how much got squeezed into this 66 minute film. "You're Telling Me" contains some of Fields best work. The golf routine at the end is classic, although a little shorter than in the previously filmed "the Golf Specialist" which features a different and even more revolting caddy. What I noticed on seeing this film again after many years is what a good actor Fields is, especially in the scene where he talks the princess out of suicide. The supporting cast is also very good especially the aforementioned Kathleen Howard. No other comedian could get away with the scene where Fields knocks himself out with one of his inventions and two scenes later is still unconscious. As a Fields fan this a 10. Favorite line: "Your alright Mayor, I voted for you in the last election...five times."

Does anyone out there know where I can find a copy of "Man on the Flying Trapeze" ? Any information is much appreciated.