Un conte d'apothicaire

After only knowing about this silent W. C. Fields film by its reputation, I finally saw it on YouTube. I found myself chuckling if not completely gawfalling at the antics of Fields as Elmer Prettywillie, a druggist. First, his sleep is rudely interrupted by a woman constantly ringing at the entrance just to buy a two-cent stamp which leads to other such nuisances in a dry run for the same sequence in his It's a Gift. There's also a picnic scene which would also appear in that later talkie. The later plot concerns a traveling man who's smitten with Mr. Prettywillie's employee Louise Brooks selling real estate and wanting to put a big ad in his window, making Elmer vice president. I'll stop there and just say while I didn't think this was one of the funniest things ever, it was still pretty enjoyable for what it was. So I say give It's the Old Army Game a look.

"It's the Old Army Game" is a W.C. Fields silent film I just found on YouTube. While Fields' sort of humor is best when you can hear him, he made quite a few silents as well. When I saw this one, I wasn't too surprised to see him with a ridiculous black mustache...he sometimes wore this Little Tramp-like 'stach in his silent movies. But I was surprised to see how thin and young he looked. In addition to Fields, Louise Brooks starred in this one...one of the few American movies in which she starred during her rather brief career. And, I must admit that the cameraman really seemed to like her...and the shots with her in it were often radiant.

Fields plays Elmer Prettywillie*, a top hat-wearing druggist. The story is much like his sound classic "It's a Gift", where there isn't a lot of plot...just Fields being Fields as a shop owner. In fact, some of this was used almost exactly in the later film...such as the balcony sequence where Mr. Prettywillie is trying to sleep. Some might dislike this lack of plot, but I think it showcases Fields' talents best and is quite enjoyable. And, later, there is a plot...and it's also a reworking of the plot in the second half of "It's a Gift". In "It's a Gift", Fields' character buys land in California to have an orange plantation...only to discover that the land is barren and seemingly useless. Here in "It's the Old Army Game", he convinces his neighbors to buy land...only to realize later that it might be a con game that he's convinced everyone in which to invest! And, like the later film, he manages to work his way out of the mess...and turns out to be the hero. But, instead of heading to California ((like in the latter film), he heads to New York City.

So is it any good? Yes....very good. While I do think the remake was actually a major improvement in several ways, it's a very enjoyable movie. How did I prefer the remake? Well, it wasn't just sound...although with Fields' style of humor, sound DOES help a lot. Part of it was the pacing. While both films have a slow, meandering sort of style, "It's the Old Army Game" seemed like it could use a bit more editing to pick up the pace. Also, the park/mansion scene seemed MUCH better in the remake...in this film, they just came off as big jerks and it wasn't funny. Sill, overall a very enjoyable movie...one of the comedian's best silents...and well worth seeing.

*Fields often created the most ridiculous names for his and other characters. Prettywillie is odd...but no more so than Mahatma Kane Jeeves (the name he used for himself as writer of "The Bank Dick"), Cuthbert J. Twillie and Egbert Sousé. My favorite was J. Pinkerton Snoopington....the perfect name for the bank examiner in "The Bank Dick".

The version I have is an excellent print from a showing in Oregon. It runs 105 minutes (not the 70 or 77 minutes mentioned on IMDb) and boasts a nice, live piano performance by Keith Taylor. This film was considered to be lost for many decades but exists in a very nice print.

This film is basically a forerunner of the hilarious 1934 film, IT'S A GIFT, but is based on a play entitled "The Comic Supplement." As with most W.C. Fields material, the story here is a mish-mash from several sources and his own stage routines.

Fields started filing a couple of his stage routines in 1915 as shorts but was not successful, In 1924 he landed a small but effective role in Marion Davies' JANICE MEREDITH. He finally landed a starring role in a feature film the following year in SALLY OF THE SAWDUST, a version of his stage hit "Poppy." He appeared fairly regularly through the end of his silent films in 1928.

Here Fields plays a small-town druggist who is much put upon by his family (a sister and nephew), a local spinster, and the town at large. His only good relationship is with Brooks, who works in his store. As with most Fields films, his only close relationships is with a grown daughter or young lady.

In a subplot, a real estate sharpie (William Gaxton) comes to town and falls for Brooks. He talks Fields into letting him use his store to sell New York City lots (not Florida, as mentioned elsewhere). Of course Gaxton is hauled away by the law and Fields feels compelled to pay back the money to all the "investors" who have been bilked.

As with IT'S A GIFT, we have scenes on the back porch where Fields is trying to sleep, the nagging and odious family (Mary Foy, Mickey Bennett), and a prolonged picnic scene on the grounds of a private estate. This version also has Fields hassling with NYC traffic (the wrong way on a one way street) as he ventures to right the wrongs of Gaxton.

Of course Gaxton is freed and the investors all become rich, so when Fields returns to town and sees the crowds, he's afraid they are out to get him. This leads to a chase scene where Fields ends up in jail.

Heavy on the sentimental melodrama, IT'S THE OLD ARMY GAME is not really a comedy, but a film with comic scenes. Fields never really became a comedian until the talkies, where his films were trimmed of melodrama and his famous rasping voice finally gave him a personality. His decades-long stage career was spent mainly as a silent juggler.

Yet Fields is certainly impressive here (as he was in SALLY OF THE SAWDUST) but the meandering storyline doesn't help much. Louise Brooks is just stunning here as the small-town girl. Gaxton and Foy are OK. Bennett is a little brat, and Blanche Ring is funny as the fluttery spinster who pines for Fields. Also funny is one of Fields favorites, Elise Cavanna as the near-sighted woman who wants a 2-cent stamp.

The big surprise for me when viewing the KINO release of the 1926 W.C. Fields comedy IT'S THE OLD ARMY GAME was how beautiful the print is. For the most part it is pristine. For any Fields fan who is familiar with his classic sound feature IT'S A GIFT there is much to compare and enjoy in this silent rendering. No doubt the routines work better with sound and polishing but it's fun to see it being attempted without the sound. Fields looks youthful and fit. Louise Brooks is not only beautiful but very animated and delightful in this her fourth film. The Ben Model pipe organ score works very well and is authentic to the way many audiences would have experienced the film originally.. The only Extra is a commentary track by author James L. Neilbaur. It has its original tinting. If you are a fan of Fields or comedy from the silent era then this release is worth taking a look at. The film title don't really do justice to the film content but it is explained during the course of the film.





























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In his 1967 book "The Art of W.C. Fields," film historian William K. Everson bemoaned the apparent loss of much of Fields' early movie work. In a chapter devoted to eight silent films that Fields made for Paramount from 1926 to 1928, Everson wrote: "Of those eight features, not one is known to have survived." Stills from most of those films decorate Everson's book; they stare out from the pages as ghostly reminders of films believed gone for good.

That was then; since Everson's book was published, copies of three of those missing features have turned up: "So's Your Old Man," "Running Wild" - and "It's the Old Army Game." (The one film in the group of eight that film historians would really like to get their hands on is "That Royle Girl," which was the second feature Fields did with D.W. Griffith, the first being "Sally of the Sawdust.")

I got to see "Army Game" at the AFI Silver in Silver Spring, Maryland. As funny as the film was - and it was very funny - the experience of seeing it on the big screen was also surprisingly poignant, given its formerly lost status. Relying on contemporary reviews, Everson speculated that Fields' silent Paramount features, which were all produced by the company's New York studio, were done on the cheap and probably suffered from a "cramped 'East Coast look.'" As it turns out, "Army Game" is a very handsomely mounted production, and includes location filming in Florida and New York City (it was fairly amazing to see scenes of midtown Manhattan in 1926 and notice how much of it - the buildings, mainly - has barely changed in nearly eight decades). "Army Game" is so well produced, it was sad to think that, like Clementine, it was once thought "lost and gone forever."

Partly remade as "The Pharmacist" in 1933 and "It's a Gift" in 1934, "Army Game" stars Fields as Elmer Prettywillie, a small town druggist who suffers various indignities at the hands of his relatives (no wife here, but there is an obnoxious sister and her nephew), customers and neighbors. Can a silent Fields be as funny as the talking one we're all familiar with? This film says definitely. Of course, we all know what Fields sounded like, so this can simply be a case of filling in his voice with our imaginations. But our imaginations don't stop there. In one scene, when Fields is trying to sleep on a porch swing and a baby girl (who, I'm convinced, was played by an adult female midget) stands nearby and bawls, I could hear her crying rattling in my brain.

But perhaps we do miss Fields' voice, after all. One minor complaint I have about "Army Game" is that Fields' character seems to keep changing on us. In one scene, he's a milquetoast who can't bring himself to charge an overbearing woman for the two cents' worth of postage she's purchased; in another, he comes perilously close to maliciously dropping the above-mentioned baby off a balcony; in another, he's a sharpie who out-hustles a would-be hustler; in another, he's a buffoon who doesn't know the meaning of a "no trespassing" sign and calls a grandfather clock a "watch." I'm not saying a film character can't show different sides or can never surprise us with some hidden trait or ability, but Elmer Prettywillie seems to be suffering from multiple personality disorder. Had Fields been able to use his voice in this film, he might have brought all these seemingly disparate threads together, as he probably did in "It's a Gift" (which I don't remember well, it's been about 30 years since I've seen it - yipe!). "Army Game" also has an extraneous romantic subplot involving drugstore employee Louise Brooks and handsome con artist William Gaxton that threatens to split off into its own film.

This was the first time I'd seen Louise Brooks in a movie, and all I can say at first blush is: Wow. As Prettywillie's young assistant, Brooks positively radiates from the screen without even trying. OK, she does try in one scene: clad in a swimsuit, leaning against a tree, head tilted back, eyes closed and trying to look heartbroken, Brooks is so obviously posing (or being posed) for the camera, it's hard not to snicker. But she does it *so* well. (The director was Edward Sutherland, who married Brooks around the time this film was made; their marriage lasted all of about two years.)

In his Fields book, Everson said "Army Game" was "not remembered with any great enthusiasm" by Brooks. In her own book, "Lulu in Hollywood," Brooks, recalling her work with Gaxton, says with acerbic candor that she knew then that "our parts as the 'love interest' in a Fields comedy meant nothing." Did Brooks ever get to see "Army Game"? It's doubtful. In her 1982 book, published three years before her death, Brooks said she hadn't seen it. It's a shame - not only did she miss out on a truly funny W.C. Fields vehicle, she also missed out on seeing a delightful young actress with a pageboy-style haircut who lit up the screen every time she appeared. (Dear AFI: Could you schedule a screening of "Pandora's Box" real soon, please?)

A couple of footnotes: AFI's presentation of "Army Game" featured excellent live organ accompaniment by Ray Brubacher. Also, the film, when I saw it, ran about 90 minutes, considerably longer than the running time listed by IMDb - I suspect AFI ran the film as close to "natural speed" as possible, which was a definite plus in terms of presentation.