Tillie and Gus

During his early years in talkies, W. C. Fields was searching for the right on-screen personality to attract a national audience. After two feature sound films where he had to share credit with other headliners and four shorts, the former vaudeville star finally found his niche in October 1933's "Tillie and Gus." One two-reeler example of his adversarial relationship with viewers, produced by Mack Sennet, now employed by Paramount Pictures, was 1932's 'The Dentist.' Fields is a hot-tempered dentist who abuses his patients and staff, cheats at golf, and assaults his caddies.

One film historian noted,"Fields must have known that 'The Dentist, presented a serious flaw for a comedy image that was intended to endure." "Tillie and Gus" showcased his warmer side, albeit still somewhat crusty personality. Some say the movie was inspired by Marie Dressler and Wallace Beery's 1933's "Tugboat Annie." Fields is teamed up with veteran actress Alison Skipworth as Tillie, who had a similar build to Dressler. Tillie and Gus are both con artists in Asia posing as missionaries. The two get wind that Tillie's brother died and may have left her an inheritance. Arriving in Northern California, the two noticed the executor of the brother's will, Phineas Pratt (Clarence Wilson), has swindled everything from the family, except an old steamboat. They decide to get even by rehabbing the boat and staking everything they have on a thrill-a-second steamboat race.

Time Magazine appreciated the turn of direction of Fields playing a kinder, more benevolent character who saves Baby LeRoy from drowning. Fields recalls one scene where the year-old baby was crying repeatedly. "I quietly removed the nipple from Baby LeRoy's bottle, dropped in a couple of noggins of gin, and returned it to Baby LeRoy," he said. "After sucking on the pacifier for a few minutes, he staggered through the scene like a Barrymore." The script makes fun of the fact Fields wasn't exactly enthralled with children and babies. Tillie asks Gus upon meeting her baby grandson for the first time, "Do you like children?" Gus replies, "I do if they're properly cooked."

Actress Skipworth, after her appearance with Fields in 1932's "If I Had A Million," displayed an on-screen chemistry with the comedian, playing in four movies together. Skipworth's acting career stretched back to 1894 when she appeared in her native-London stage at 31. Her film debut was in 1912, but she favored live acting until talkies arrived. Her busy movie career ended in 1938, but she lived until 1952.

For Fields, "Tillie and Gus" shaped the screen persona for the 53-year-old actor. His fans, old and new, appreciated his wit so much more without the abrasive behavior of his past characters.

TILLIE AND GUS (Paramount, 1933), directed by Francis Martin, stars W.C. Fields and Alison Skipworth, in their second collaboration together following their hilarious "roadhog" segment from the episodic motion picture, IF I HAD A MILLION (1932). With Fields and Skipworth as Paramount's answer to MGM's own Wallace Beery and Marie Dressler, of MIN AND BILL (1930) and TUGBOAT ANNIE (1933) fame, the plot for TILLIE AND GUS could very well be Paramount's equivalent to TUGBOAT ANNIE (1933), however, the only difference is that there's no need in borrowing from MGM or calling this one TUGBOAT TILLIE, for example, considering how Paramount has Fields and Skipworth at the helm is all that's needed in keeping this 58 minute comedy afloat.

The story begins not with Tillie and Gus but with the introduction of a young married couple, Tom (Clifford Jones) and Mary Sheridan (Jacqueline Wells), along with their baby boy called "King" (Baby LeRoy) and their very smart pet duck, taking up residence in the town of Danbury. After the reading of the will by Mary's father, John Blake, who died bankrupt, Phineas Platt (Clarence Wilson), a family lawyer and a crooked one at that, loots the estate for himself, leaving the girl nothing but an old ferry boat, forcing Tom, a college student, from obtaining his engineering degree. Mary, who has notified her Aunt Tillie and Uncle Gus, working their separate ways as missionaries, of the situation, hopes they'll come over to guide them. Enter Augustus Q. Winterbottom (W.C. Fields), revealed not as a missionary as depicted, but a professional card sharp forced to leave Alaska by a judge (Edgar Kennedy) following a crooked game; and Tillie Winterbottom (Alison Skipworth), his ex-wife, owner of a Soo Chow Club in Shanghai, China, who, after received Mary's telegram, gambles away her place to the Swede (Ivan Linow), earning enough money to book passage to Danville. Once they meet at a train station in Seattle, where Gus addresses Tillie as "My Little Chickadee" (Fields' most famous catch phrase), the couple soon forget their differences, offering their assistance to the young couple by arranging a ferry boat race between the defunct Fairy Queen and Pratt's very own Keystone to the Old Town dock that's to take place on the 4th of July, with amusing results.

For Fields' first starring feature role since the silent era of 1928, TILLIE AND GUS offers great promise with fine comedy material (Fields and Skipworth as dedicated missionaries shown in their true surroundings; W.C. cheating suckers at cards and his mixing of paint while listening to the instructor on radio), offbeat one-liners (Tillie: "Do you like children?" Gus: "I do if they're properly cooked"), and a touch of suspense (Baby LeRoy in a mini-bathtub that falls off the deck and floating down the river), there's not enough to rank this the comedy classic as Fields' latter IT'S A GIFT (1934) and THE BANK DICK (1940). In some ways, it's a quiet comedy in the Will Rogers tradition, highlighted by both the steamboat race and the support of familiar faces as Edgar Kennedy, George Barbier, Barton MacLane, and of course Clarence Wilson, whose face is enough to frighten any child away from his property whenever ordering them to "scoot." Baby LeRoy, the year-old infant whose dialog consists of overdubbed baby noises, cries and laughter, makes one of Fields' better known advisories under the age of five.

Never distributed on video cassette, TILLIE AND GUS was one of the features presented on Turner Classic Movies in June 2001 with W.C. Fields as its "Star of the Month," before being placed to DVD a few years later. Although Fields and Skippy would be paired once more in SIX OF A KIND (1934), who else can play phony missionaries and he singing "Bringing in the Sheeves" as their lovable characters of Tillie and Gus? (**1/2)

Sometimes it takes a crook to catch a crook. Thus enter TILLIE AND GUS Winterbottom, charlatans both, come to the rescue of their niece who's been cheated out of her inheritance by a shyster lawyer.

Alison Skipworth & W. C. Fields are a wonderful team in this little comedy, full of slapstick and verbal wisecracks. Eventually partnered in three films at Paramount - IF I HAD A MILLION (1932); TILLIE AND GUS (1933); SIX OF A KIND (1934); their characters only appeared together for a few seconds at the banquet climax of ALICE IN WONDERLAND (1933) - they played off each other beautifully. Theirs is one of the great unsung comedic duos in screen history.

Fields is terrific, as always. His two great scenes - the poker game & the paint mixing debacle - are played with great aplomb. Watching him handily defeat lesser crooks than himself is a real treat, whether it's the three cardsharps or the sour old lawyer. Never deigning to smarten up a chump, he is surprisingly warm with Baby LeRoy, in their first screen encounter. Always fascinating, never dull, W. C. Fields is secure in his place as the American cinema's greatest curmudgeon.

The formidably talented Skipworth (1863-1952), English born & bred, usually played comic, cultured ladies. Seventeen years older than Fields (unlike Tillie Winterbottom, she was not born in 1881), she was 70 the year she made TILLIE AND GUS. With her massive presence and clarion voice, she was an agile match for Fields' well known scene stealing techniques. Easily the most significant of all his movie matrons, it is unfortunate that today she is remembered primarily for her films with Fields, and not for the rest of her splendid work.

Julie Bishop & Phillip Trent do nicely as the young couple. Since they are already wed & with baby when the film commences there are no unnecessary romantic complications for the plot to deal with. Old Clarence Wilson once again does very well as an acid tongued villain. George Barbier is quaintly befuddled as the rival boat captain. And in his one scene as a harassed judge, Edgar Kennedy runs his hilarious slow burn around the block one more time.

The ferry boat race with which the film climaxes - the Fairy Queen versus the Keystone - is well produced, with elements of hilarity & suspense equally mixed into the sequence.

Before TILLIE AND GUS, W. C. Fields had already appeared in five talking full-length films, but always as one of the featured players. With this picture, the Paramount bosses felt he was at last ready to co-star in a movie, although he & Alison Skipworth still receive below the title billing. After a few more films Fields would begin to solo star in a series of comedy classics.

"Tillie and Gus" is a must-see early Paramount effort by the great W.C. The Great Man is in top form, and is ably aided by Ms. Skipworth. I recently purchased the DVD of this film, and was taken aback during a quick sequence within the courtroom scene in the early part of the film. It has been noted, and can be verified upon viewing, that Edgar Kennedy let slip the "s" word, when uttering the exclamation "oh sh*t" in the Laurel & Hardy short, "A Perfect Day" and unless I'm mistaken, he utters the magic word much more blatantly during the courtroom scene in "Tillie and Gus" in which Kennedy plays the judge. Unless my ears deceive me, the exchange between High Card Harrington, the Judge and Gus goes: High Card: "Six shots" The Judge: "Six sh*ts" Gus: "Six Cigars." Everyone, please take a look at this scene and see if you hear what I heard! I watched it ten times in a row, and still can't believe it.

"Tillie And Gus" is a "Sleeper" for W.C. Fields. It is not one of his movies that he is best remembered for, but it has several components that make it a great curiosity. First of all, Fields is teamed up again with Alison Skipworth, the craggy character actress, who in her earlier stage career in England was known to be a great beauty. She is also as far as I'm concerned, Fields' greatest female co-star. She interacts with him well as she did in "If I Had A Million" and "Six of A Kind". The two are formerly man and wife in this saga, working as "missionaries" on different locations who are found out for their flim-flam ways and sent packing back home where they are summoned to the dockside of a niece, her husband and infant son (Baby Leroy), who are being swindled out of their inheritance by shyster lawyer Phineas Pratt. The niece owns a run-down riverboat, threatened to be put in mothballs by a newer boat. A race is run to determine which boat has superiority over the other, and who keeps the river franchise. Fields' and Skipworth's goals is to help win the race, receive the money to thwart Pratt, and to kick the bum out! Memorable scenes include The "Missionaries" working together to refix a poker game on the train to their benefit, and Fields' memorable line to the question "You like children?". "Only if they are properly cooked", he says. This film is seldom seen on television and never seen as a video. The rights to this and many other Fields' films are buried in the vaults of Universal Pictures. It should be released for all of us to see again.