Pool Sharks

Given its significance in the career of the great comic W.C. Fields, "Pool Sharks" would certainly be worth seeing for its historical interest alone. In itself, it's probably just an average feature for its time and genre, and it doesn't give Fields the chance to shows his greatest strengths, but it is fun to see him in such an early screen appearance.

You can see the strong influence of Chaplin and Keystone, as the plot and all the characters are patterned after those styles. Fields plays one of two rivals for the hands of a girl, and his character gets involved in the kind of manic slapstick that characterized a great many short comedies in the mid-1910s. Nothing wrong with that at all, and while "Pool Sharks" in itself would not stand out, it probably would not have left too many of its original viewers disappointed, either.

Besides the slapstick, there are some visual effects with the pool table, and while the special effects technique is rudimentary, it's amusing enough.

For the most part, Fields himself just has to keep up with the madcap pace, and cannot do some of the things that he did best, yet you can see his talent when he has the chance to show it.

Pool Sharks was a short subject film made in New York while W.C. Fields was in the Ziegfeld Follies. It must have been work for a day or two when they didn't have matinées and Fields co-stars with another silent screen comedian Ben Ross who never quite had the career Fields did. These are the only two names in the cast. We don't even get to see the name of the girl these two are fighting over.

After some slapstick attempts of oneupmanship with the girl watching the two take it to a poolroom with her and a crowd watching Fields and Ross square off over the green felt table. Naturally we don't see the color.

At this point I was expecting to see something like the pool game that was prominent in Six Of A Kind. Instead I got to see some crude animation as both these guys make some impossible shots that even Minnesota Fats would have said were impossible.

Without the voice, but those famous reactions to life that Fields was later famous for in the Thirties are all present in Pool Sharks. A must for fans of the great comic cynic W.C. Fields.

It is clear that Mr. Fields had not yet solidified his famous character in this pedestrian little silent effort. One wonders exactly how he was directed, since evidence indicates a totally different character in his stage routines than what he would portray in this film. Very disjointed, most stereotypical slapstick with no real inventiveness, this film is really interesting only in that it portrays a much younger W. C. Fields than modern audiences are accustomed to.

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.