Poker party

That was one of the lines in a trailer about this film and for once the publicists did not exaggerate. All six of the featured players here are on the screen 99% of the time, so they have to be good.

It's always fascinating how certain plot premises can be worked for either highballing comedy to a deadly serious situation. Mary Boland of the ditzy and Charlie Ruggles of the henpecked play their usual characters who are planning to motor all the way to California. To share expenses they advertise for someone to share the ride. They get Burns and Allen and a monster of a dog. That same premise was a deadly serious one several generations later in Kalifornia.

Of course if you're traveling with Gracie Allen you know you're going to be going absolutely nuts trying to figure her Monty Pythonesque reasoning about the whole world. And if that ain't enough you get to run into W.C. Fields, part time sheriff and full time pool hustler who's living in sin with Alison Skipworth. But back then we didn't delve into such things.

A real classic comedy from the thirties, not to be missed.

The plot's pretty lame, George and Gracie are okay (a few shining moments, but nothing spectacular), and the jokes aren't all that outstanding, but there is a five minute sequence with W.C. Fields attempting to shoot pool that is one of the funniest five minutes ever put to celluloid. I howled at this scene as I have rarely howled at anything in my life. The entire movie is worth a watch for this scene alone.

It is not always certain that by mixing comedians together you will produce laughter. The comics involved have to actually like or admire each other, or be willing to put up with each other's crankiness. GO WEST with the Marx Brothers had Buster Keaton write the script as a gag man. Groucho did not think too highly of Keaton's ideas, and embarrassed him at a script meeting. And though some of Keaton's gems still appear in the finished film (such as the gun that turns into a brush that turns into a gun) the film was one of the weakest the Marx Brothers ever made.

A better film, but also affected by dueling comic egos, was W.C. Fields and Mae West in MY LITTLE CHICKADEE, which jettisoned the script for a series of duels of one liners between the leads. But the one liners were equally funny, so the film remains a success.

But SIX OF A KIND is an example of six film comics who worked well together. The reason is simple: it is really three comic teams working together: Charlie Ruggles and Mary Boland, George Burns and Gracie Allan, and W.C. Fields and Alison Skipworth. Ruggles and Boland were paired in about half a dozen comedies during the 1930s, usually with Boland as a somewhat bossy wife, and Ruggles as a nervous wreck of a husband. Fields (usually a single act) was paired three times with Skipworth (TILLY AND GUS and IF I HAD A MILLION were the other two times). Skippy always figured out how to control or counter the larcenous activities of her man - it the present film she takes action into her own hands with the stolen money that is being searched for (she knows that the local sheriff, Fields, is not the one to trust with this). As for Burns and Allan they manage to effortlessly involve themselves with the put upon Ruggles and Boland on their cross-country trip by car.

Ruggles quickly gets to realize what a mistake it was to agree to travel with Gracie - at one point she manages to cause him to fall off a cliff, and dangle from a branch. He is relatively helpless when she insists on 1) photographing him on his perch, and 2) correcting his grammar. The presence of George and Gracie's humongous dog ("Ran Tang Tang" is it's name) does not make travel arrangements easier for Charlie and Mary.

Fields has some choice moments. When he insists on shouting at the quartet, he says he's allowed to do so - he's the sheriff! He also explains, during a pool game, the improbable story of how he got his undeserved moniker "Honest John". You have to listen carefully to the tale, as it is interrupted with his attempts to play pool a few times (once getting accidentally beaned by a billiard ball), but it does show that there were items that even Fields would have had no reason to steal.

Oh, in the "Summary Line", I mentioned a forgotten actor named Bradley Page - he was the man who is responsible for the trouble that Charley Ruggles is suspected of. Bradley has to have a reason to leave town in order to catch up with the unwary Ruggles and Boland, so he telephones his girl friend. He tells her to call back his job and say that he has to leave town because somebody has died. There is a pause as he apparently hears a question shot back by the girlfriend. "ANYBODY!", he says - clearly annoyed. Although the bulk of the humor in the film is carried by the sextet of performers, Mr.Page happened to have the most amusingly unexpected line in the film.

I watched Six of a Kind for W.C. Fields - he's only in it for around 10 minutes and has one long scene, the infamous pool sequence he made famous in vaudeville, and several other great moments. The reamaining 55 minutes are also delightful, thankfully, mostly due to the hilarious Charlie Ruggles as the bumbling banker J. Pinkham Whinney. He is everyone's foil. He stutters and stumbles about to our pleasure. Also, his comedy partner, Mary Boland plays his wife, Flora. Joining in the proceedings are George Burns and Gracie Allen. Boland is particularly funny near the beginning and near the end, but Gracie and Ruggles use up most of the picture. Gracie's funny, quite, but she can also get tiring. And poor George Burns has absolutely nothing to do except repeat Gracie all the time. I don't remember laughing at him once (although he has one great scene with Ruggles, where Ruggles tries desperately to get George to take Gracie and leave him and his wife alone for a while, and one with Fields, where he asks Fields to sell him a sweater; that bit is exclusively Fields', though). The situation is constantly funny: the Whinneys are going to drive to California, but to help them with expenses, George and Gracie are recruited. 8/10.

Comedy can date more rapidly than drama, generally. Certainly, the comedy of Burns and Allen (while still unique) is of its era. In fact, they perfected their act in their 50s TV series -- which is still delightful if you can find it.

But the value of "Six of a Kind" is more an artifact of particular players forever captured on film. Mary Boland is always excellent and she's wonderful here (but at her best a few years later in "The Women"). Charlie Ruggles essentially played the same role all his career and nobody plays Charlie Ruggles better. Alison Skipworth is barely utilized at all, here.

It's the preservation of W.C. Fields' immortal "Honest John" routine from vaudeville that earns "Six of a Kind" its place in film history. It's difficult to imagine how this routine worked from the distance of a stage. But on film it's a miracle of comic construction, timing, delivery and skill (yes he actually ricochets that billiard ball off the far end of the table where it bounces back and hits his forehead). The routine is hypnotic and hysterical, and perfectly pitched for film.