Poppy

POPPY is an atypical W. C. Fields film even though this was the second time he filmed the story (earlier it was the 1925 D. W. Griffith silent SALLY OF THE SAWDUST with Carol Dempster and Alfred Lunt as the young lovers). This gentle little comedy/drama, originally a turn of the century stage melodrama, casts Fields as a carnival con man with an 18-year-old daughter Poppy (Rochelle Hudson). While in a small town, Hudson falls in love with the mayor's son (Richard Cromwell) and Fields, thought to be a distinguished lecturer, attracts the attention of the presumably wealthy Madame DePuizzi ("Madame DePussy" according to Fields!!) deliciously played by Catherine Doucet. Seems the Mme. is quite a con herself - she is only a presumed heiress, being the former mistress of a now deceased wealthy man of the town whose only actual heir, a daughter mysteriously disappeared twenty years ago. Fields with the help of shady attorney Lynne Overman concocts a story that he is the widower of the daughter, making his own daughter the heiress of the estate. Meanwhile Mme. "dePussy" starts to show her claws and is in cahoots with Cromwell's old girlfriend and others to shame Hudson for her carnival background and disprove Field's claims.

The atmosphere for this 1880's tale is quite charming and effective and there are several wonderful Fields comic bits, particularly his barter of a "talking dog" although I found his croquette travesty a misfire that didn't work. His performance is top notch however and the charming young Hudson and the equally adorable Cromwell are very appealing. Maude Eburne stands out among the supporting cast in a delightful role as a local matron who takes an interest in Rochelle and becomes her only friend in town. POPPY is perhaps a bit too genteel for W.C.'s biggest fans who like him best in a wild comedy but it's still a pleasing and successful albeit modest picture.

I left this one for last from the films in the W.C. FIELDS COMEDY COLLECTION VOL. 2 because it's always been reported that his contribution is swamped by the plot; I ended up enjoying it more than I had expected to and, in fact, consider this an underrated star vehicle.

It's true that the sentimental narrative, romantic subplot and even a couple of songs get in the way of the comedy highlights, but Fields himself is in fine form here (he originated the role of Professor Eustace McGargle on stage and had already appeared in a Silent version of the Dorothy Donnelly play called SALLY OF THE SAWDUST [1925] - directed, of all people, by D.W. Griffith and, for this reason, making it one of the very few Fields Silents released on DVD!). Incidentally, the star was seriously injured during the making of POPPY - not that his performance is effected in any way. Here, also, we're treated to the same kind of period atmosphere as in THE OLD FASHIONED WAY (1934): Fields, however, is a sideshow performer instead of the manager/lead actor of a theatrical troupe and has exchanged the awkward golf practice of YOU'RE TELLING ME! (1934) for the game of croquet - at which he's equally inept (besides playing an instrument called the kadoola to replace his memorable juggling act in THE OLD FASHIONED WAY). As in MAN ON THE FLYING TRAPEZE (1935), too, here we get various instances of Fields' unique and hilarious shriek whenever he takes a fall.

Among the film's best gags/lines are the following: the 'talking' dog scam; Fields berating a hot dog vendor for 'seeking his advise' in the sale of two half-eaten loaves, after the latter insulted him by suggesting that Fields couldn't afford to pay for them; he keeps running into a cadaverous fellow he swindled and who relentlessly asks for his money back; Fields mistaking a helpful gesture as to his presumed wife's distinctive features (the man indicated a mole under her ear, but Fields thought he meant she had sideburns!); his remark about the horse he was fleeing on dying out on him right in front of the police station. By the way, the last line of the film, "Never give a sucker an even break", gave the name to one of Fields' most famous vehicles (also included in the set and which I watched earlier this week).

Now I need to pick up the four remaining Fields films that are available on DVD - the afore-mentioned SALLY OF THE SAWDUST, SIX OF A KIND (1934), David COPPERFIELD (1935) and THE BIG BROADCAST OF 1938 (1938) - all but the first of which have been issued as part of some collection or other. Incidentally, there are still enough unreleased Fields movies from the Talkie period to compile yet another Universal set; so, let's hope they deliver sooner rather than later...

The devoted daughter is the only Fields stock plot left from previous films It's A Gift , You're Telling Me, there's no nagging wife and annoying in-laws here. For that reason the film suffers slightly in comparison, it really drags when Fields isn't in it and the audience is left with his daughter's romance with a local schmuck, or worse the same waltz song sung twice. Also it is clear as others have mentioned Fields isn't completely on his game due to back problems which may have led him to drink more. Still, for Fields fans there is plenty to enjoy here especially the croquet sequence, his recurring encounter with a previous dupe, and an attempt at playing a kind of violin. Enough laughs to make up for the lulls.

In this film, W.C. Fields who was one of the great elder comedians of his time plays a carnival performer. He and his daughter, Poppy, arrive in town. It's there that Poppy falls in love with the town's most eligible handsome bachelor. It's a mutual attraction but her breeding and heritage is not attractive. Poppy is a carnival girl who was raised by her father and traveled from town to town with the carnival. She certainly wouldn't get approved by the local society. Anyway, there are tricks and turns that changes everything without spoiling it. W.C. Fields was a comic genius on stage and in film before television. He was one of the great legends that came to film in his winter of his career. Even though, the cast is first rate but the writing is weak. Anyway it's entertaining and unforgettable. Watch W.C. Fields performing is a timeless treasure.

No it is not the greatest of W.C. Field's comedies - it does not rank with THE BANK DICK or IT'S A GIFT or THE OLD FASHIONED WAY or even MY LITTLE CHICKADEE. But POPPY is of considerable interests to the many fans of the great misanthropic comic. In 1923 he appeared on stage in POPPY as "EUSTACE McGARGLE". It was the first lead role in a play (as opposed to one or two comic supporting parts, and his years of vaudeville juggling/comic routines, or his years headlining in the Ziefeld Follies) that FIelds had. Interestingly enough his performance on stage enabled him to cross paths with another future movie comedian (though a lesser one in retrospect), Robert Woolsey (of Wheeler and Woolsey), who appeared as a rustic victim of McGargle. The play gave Fields a "Fields" day as a carnival swindler, who was also the foster father of a young woman who Fields/McGargle would try to pass off as an heiress. The play was subsequently made into a silent film, "Sally of the Sawdust" (Field's third silent movie, and first directed by the great D.W.Griffith). The silent version was actually a vehicle for Griffith's pitifully inadequate actress find Carol Dempster (who was also his girlfriend at the time). It is also of interest because the boyfriend of Dempster was played by a young Alfred Lunt (sadly Lynn Fontaine was not in this film).

The 1925 "Sally of the Sawdust" had some good moments when Fields did his larcenous best - including a "heroic" scene at the end where he explains "Sally"'s true parentage at court, and saves her from prison. But Dempster's attempts at "gamin" like cuteness are tiresome to a viewing today. Lunt does well, but is a distinctly supporting actor here.

Fortunately sound came along, so that Mr. Lunt (now with Lynn Fontaine) would make THE GUARDSMAN and plenty of television appearances in the future to demonstrate their fine acting abilities. Ms Dempster, of course, just faded into oblivion. Fields too would benefit by sound, and would leave us that nasal twang that made us guffaw so much. And by doing "Poppy" as a sound film we were able to hear some of the dialog from the stage play that the silent film did not have. Mention has been made of three moments: the sale of the "talking dog", the business with the hot dog vendor (which is where the line at the start of this review comes from), and the business with the patent medicine purchaser ("No more"). A fourth one is the sequence (somewhat too brief) where "Professor" McGargle entertains the guests at a society party with some high sounding concerto on a strange looking stringed instrument. He ends up playing "Pop Goes the Weasel". At the end, when "Poppy" is revealed to really be the lost heiress, McGargle takes leave of his adopted daughter in a quiet, dignified way - not quite as tragic as a similar sequence in THE OLD FASHIONED WAY, perhaps, but equally not as tragic and total as his leaving her in the radio version of "Poppy" that was made within two years of the film. That version was put out on records about 1970, and keeps to the story, but seems sadder than this movie or the 1925 silent version.