Poker party

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.

Six of a Kind (1934)

*** (out of 4)

A couple (Charles Ruggles, Mary Boland) are about to go on their second honeymoon when the wife gets the bright idea to save some money by placing an ad in the paper hoping to get another couple to go along and share expenses. A couple (George Burns, Gracie Allen) agrees to go but it's just one disaster after another especially when they get to a small town with a mixed up sheriff (W.C. Fields). Considering the cast you'd think this Leo McCarey comedy would be much better known but it's pretty much been forgotten over time. While it's far from a classic comedy there are enough good moments to make it worth sitting through and especially with a 62-minute running time. The biggest thing going against the movie is its screenplay, which really isn't all that good. At just 62-minutes it seems as if the movie is broken down into six, ten-minute vignettes and it really gives the movie a somewhat uneven film. With that said, enough of those vignettes work thanks in large part to the cast. Ruggles and Boland are very good together and share some great comic timing and especially in some early scenes dealing with how much she paid for the ad. Burns and Allen really don't get too much to work with as the screenplay pretty much keeps him in the background while she gets to play dumb. Even Fields role isn't the greatest but the comic legend does what he can with it. The real star of the film goes to the wonderful dog who is downright hilarious during his scenes and especially the ones where he's pushing Ruggles around.

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.

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.

Three zany couples, all SIX OF A KIND, become entangled in a madcap search for stolen bank loot.

This is a lively, hilarious comedy, with the six stars - Charlie Ruggles & Mary Boland, W. C. Fields & Alison Skipworth, George Burns & Gracie Allen - all heartily engaged in doing what they did best: getting laughs.

Ruggles & Boland make another of their film appearances as husband & wife - this time rather more amorous than usual. They were a perfect team - she the strident lioness, he the nervous rabbit - and they dominate most of the screen time here. From beginning to end, they are a delight.

Burns & Allen continue the patter they originated in Vaudeville, perfected on radio & would eventually take to television, with George the perpetual straight man & Gracie the eternal fool. At times in the film she tends to go a bit over the top, but it's difficult to dislike her. Her heart was obviously made of solid gold.

While Skipworth is given rather short shrift - only fragments of her formidable personality flash through - Fields is in his element as the disreputable sheriff of Nuggetville, Nevada. Whether explaining how he got the nickname ‘Honest John' or skulking about at night looking for the missing moola, he is never less than wonderful. Best of all, he gets to perform his entire classic pool routine, preserving it forever for a grateful posterity. Finally, he executes the near miraculous - he gets Gracie to shut up.

Paramount was so pleased with the success of SIX OF A KIND that they wanted to hurry the principle players into another comedy. Only Fields demurred. He felt he had now arrived at the point where he no longer needed to share a movie with other celebrity comics. The Studio finally agreed and began preparation of Fields' first solo starring feature, YOU'RE TELLING ME (1934).