The Pharmacist

The last two shorts that W.C. Fields made for Mack Sennett at Paramount were a kind of dress rehearsal for the film character he was to develop in his classic features for Paramount and Universal. The ever henpecked proprietor of The Pharmacy with his wife and two daughters would be his staple character for years.

Elsie Cavenna who played Mrs. Fields in this isn't quite as shrewish a character as Kathleen Howard later would be for Fields, but that was a change he'd make in his feature. The two daughters are oblivious to his plight, one is perpetually hungry and would eat the pet bird faster than if a cat caught it. The other is going out with a guy named Cuthbert played by Grady Sutton who also would appear in several features with Fields and Fields can't stand anyone named Cuthbert. He feels one has to be a sissy if you got a name like that, it's foreordained.

Homophobia of course it to be deplored, but in the case of Fields he didn't like anybody. Under the Code same gender sex was just something so taboo as not to be even acknowledged. And Fields just didn't like anybody. He was a beloved misanthrope.

A lot of beautiful gags are in The Pharmacist make this really a treat. I did so love the man who insisted on buying a 'clean' postage stamp from the middle of the sheet. In the end Cuthbert proves to be a welcome addition to the family.

This is the kind of short comedy that shows W.C. Fields's brand of humor at its most distinctive. Mixing the subtle and the outrageous, it offers plenty of good gags, and it is the kind of feature that improves the more carefully you watch it. It has some fine surreal moments that, at least if you enjoy Fields's style, can be quite hilarious.

As "The Pharmacist", Fields plays a character who is at the same time good-natured yet misanthropic. He lives and works in a ridiculous situation, giving Fields the chance to use his voice, facial expressions, and mannerisms in some very funny ways. A couple of the vignettes with the customers are so nicely done that it's easy to miss the many subtleties. (The fussy man asking for a stamp might be the best-remembered of them.)

As the wife and daughter, Elise Cavanna and Marjorie Kane are also very good, fitting their characters right into the world that Fields creates.

Fields excels in (among other things) throwing his viewers an occasional curve, and it's not always easy to catch everything, "The Pharmacist", like its companions "The Dentist" and "The Barber Shop", has a resourceful supply of material performed by one of the movies' most talented comedians.

W.C Fields should have made more short comedies before settling into feature length films. His style translated to comedy shorts better in some ways than with his feature films. "The Pharmacist" has Fields once again playing a henpecked husband who is struggling to keep his pharmacy business successful. He has customers who don't buy anything, a run in with a wanted outlaw and two daughters who are about as much use as a pair of ice skates in the sand! There are some good moments and Fields has some witty dialogue to work with.

A MACK SENNETT Short Subject.

Caught between his frightful female relations on the second floor & the rather odd customers down in the shop, THE PHARMACIST in a small town reacts with predictably irascible behavior.

Initially conceived as a skit in 1925 for the Ziegfeld Follies by the inimitable W. C. Fields, THE PHARMACIST become one of a quartet of short subjects produced by Mack Sennett in the early 1930's. Fortunately, Fields was given full rein to control the film as he saw fit. The success of the shorts gave a new glow to Sennett's reputation, as many in Hollywood thought the old comedy master was washed-up with the end of the Silents. For Fields, this was the opportunity to paint large on a small canvas, going straight for the laughs (based on his unique personality) without any time wasted on character development or plot complexities.

Elise Cavanna plays Fields' ghastly wife & Babe Kane is his canary-munching daughter. (Looking enough alike to be sisters, these two actresses were actually only seven years apart in age.) Grady Sutton has a small role as the much-maligned Cuthbert.

THE PHARMACIST (Paramount, 1933), directed by Arthur Ripley, the third of the Mack Sennett Star Comedy shorts to feature W.C. Fields (who also scripted), ranks another one of the better and more noteworthy comedy skits originated by Fields from stage to screen. As with his upcoming short, THE BARBER SHOP (1933), with formula repeated and recycled, Fields must contend with dysfunctional family upstairs while attending to business matters downstairs. This time he has two daughters, one constantly on the phone with her beau, Cuthbert, while the other being an overgrown brat of a child hopping about on her pogo stick who stoops to eating the family canary bird when sent away from the dinner table as punishment for her actions. He also has a slightly shrewish wife, effectively played by Elsie Cavanna, best known as Fields' patient victim in his initial Sennett comedy short, THE DENTIST (1932). Overall, a near perfect set-up for a situation comedy.

The slight plot, which takes place in a single day, revolves around the antics set in a small town neighborhood drug store run by pharmacist, Mr. Dilweg (W.C. Fields). After chasing away a couple of kids, one jumping up and down on his scale outside, and passing a couple of old-timers pondering around for three-and-a-half hours on the next move in a checker game inside, Dilweg is called to lunch by his wife (Elsie Cavanna), leading to disciplinary actions with his younger daughter (Babe Kane) and listening to his elder daughter (Lorena Carr) constantly on the telephone. Returning downstairs to attend to business, Dilweg encounters two elderly ladies insisting on speaking only to a woman about their needs; a tough patron wanting to purchase a stamp; a detective investigating if there's liquor on the premises; a shootout between an escaped gunman and the police, and finally Dilweg's surprise encounter with Cuthbert Smith (played by Grady Sutton in his first Fields comedy).

THE PHARMACIST, which looks like a segment taken from a feature length comedy, acquires its share of familiar Fields exchanges, one in particular where daughter (Kane) brawls out, "What's the matter, Pop, don't you love me?" Father, raising his hand towards her, replies in angry tone, "Certainly I love you," and growls to his wife, "She can't tell me I don't love her." Because material such as this worked so well, Fields would reprise his "fatherly love" routine in this latter feature-length comedies: IT'S A GIFT (1934) and THE BANK DICK (1940). Using a straw hat with an open top as his prop and he repeatedly reciting to himself, "Grubbing, Grubbing," is repeated in his fourth and final Sennett short, THE BARBER SHOP (1933). When Fields' performed his routines on radio during the 1940s, one of those used was that from THE PHARMACIST. This skit was later reproduced on to an LP record album from the 1970s titled "W.C. Fields on Radio." And who could forget the gruff guy asking for a stamp taken from the middle of the plaid. Best scene: Bratty daughter coughing up feathers taken and eaten one by one from the caged canary bird.

THE PHARMACIST, along with other Fields' shorts, has turned up occasionally on television over the years, notably cable stations as Turner Classic Movies in June 2001 as part of its "Star of the Month" tribute to W.C. Fields, and through its distribution on video and DVD formats, with best possible prints of all Fields' short subjects of the 1930s from the Criterion Collection. Fields' devotees would certainly find this aa good prescription for comedy. Canary birds, well, that's another matter. (***)