Pool Sharks

This was, of course, the first moving picture featuring W. C. Fields. It is just so-so, if you didn't know who it was and if it wasn't so historical for being Fields' first, it probably would attract little attention. Fields truly was more a verbal performer, and it would take the advent of sound to truly cement his niche in motion picture history. But, as such, it is an interesting historical short, has a few chuckles, but little more. At the time Fields was working for the Ziegfeld Follies and was doing a similar trick pool table routine in his act (although how this could all have really been appreciated by a large audience in a huge theater, I have no idea...) and what is seen here is a camera trick version of what would have been accomplished mechanically on his rigged table. The pool game is the highlight of this short, the rest concerns vying for the attention of a woman at an outdoor picnic (no doubt using outdoors for the lighting). If you enjoy Fields and must see all of his work, or want to see his first efforts on film, definately worth seeking out.

This W. C. Fields film truly is representative of the time in which it was made. In 1915, most silent comedies were pure slapstick--with lots of punching, slapping and pratfalls and hardly any plot. The films were mostly acted "off the cuff" with no detailed script and as a result, the movies seem rough and not particularly memorable in most cases. This movie is about average for the time--but in no way does it appear like the character Mr. Fields played in his later films. It's really a shame, as the movie could have just as easily starred any silent comedian of the day.

Fields and another guy inexplicably dislike each other (you can tell due to all the slapping and hitting). They challenge each other to a pool competition and both men proceed to make some totally impossible shots. This part was awfully silly and COULD have been good, but the trick cinematography was done poorly and looks totally fake--even by 1915 standards. If they had just sped up the film, it would have come off perfectly. Other than that, nothing else stands out in my mind. It's just another silent slapstick comedy.

This is W.C. Fields' first movie. It's an 11 minutes short silent film that tells the story of two rivals vying for the affection of a girl. After some physical comedy that we'd later see the Three Stooges use (like grabbing the person's nose with one hand and smacking it off with the other), the two decide on a game of pool to settle the score. We get an amusing display of early special effects that is used to manipulate the pool balls in a humorous fashion. And speaking of humorous fashion, Fields has a very bizarre mustache. This is a fun little silent film, featuring a young and slimmer Fields.

This movie debut from W.C. Fields is a fairly nondescript affair that presents only fleeting glimpses of the comedy legend Fields would become on the screen. The 35-year-old comedian is far from the finished article here. The booze hadn't yet gone to work on those unmistakable features, but he already looked older than his years. He sports a bushy moustache in this one, that would be pruned back over the years before disappearing completely, and relies too heavily on some fairly unpleasant comic violence for laughs that don't often materialise. In one scene he holds open his love rival's eye between finger and thumb so that he can poke it precisely with an extended forefinger – a coldly savage moment designed to appeal to the baser instincts of the film's target audience.

Although he's barely recognisable as the character with whom we would become familiar, Fields already displays his trademark animosity towards small children when he tips over the chair of a small boy, efficiently dispatching the child so that he can sit beside the woman whose affections he seeks. When he and his rival aren't antagonising each other, we are entertained by stop-motion photography of pool balls travelling around a table before returning to their original position, entering the pockets via impossible angles or flying onto a shelf on the wall. It probably knocked them out in 1915, but it's all familiar stuff now.

Of interest to curiosity seekers only…

W.C. Fields is one of my many gods of cinema. I've probably seen more of his films than most people, since I compulsively watched (and taped) all of his movies when he was TCM's Star of the Month last June. In fact, I did get a little sick of him from overexposure, and there are several I still need to watch. I just got the Criterion "6 Short Films" disc and watched the only two of them I hadn't seen, including The Pool Sharks. Well, this one is pretty lame. It's his first film, and it's a silent one. You would be absolutely right in thinking that the medium of silent films doesn't suit The Great Man at all. All this film is is gross slapstick. Some of it is funny, but nothing hilarious. It's very well worth seeing, especially for the surreal stop-motion animated pool ball scene. It's actually very difficult to tell what's going on in that sequence, but it looks neat. And if you watch it frame by frame, you will notice a goof: the animator's hands are caught in one of the shots on the left side of the screen! 6/10.