La Parade du rire

One of my favorite things about this one is seeing W.C. juggle. He started out his show business career as a juggler, and in this movie you get to see some of his act. Even after a couple of decades of drink, he still does a creditable job, to say the least. The cigar box routine is a sight to remember.

It also contains one of the oddest-named characters in any movie, Cleopatra Pepperday, played wonderfully by Jan Duggan. The scene where she sings Gathering Up The Shells By The Seashore is wonderful. Or when she's rehearsing her "line" in the play, "Here comes the prince!" There is also a fascinating little cultural artifact within the movie -- a production of The Drunkard, a 19th century hit, no doubt popular when William Claude was a mere lad.

As per usual, W.C. Fields is incredible. The fascinating thing about him, to me, is the subtlety of his performance. It doesn't LOOK subtle, I'll grant you, but what strikes me is that there are many layers to his performing in movies. On the one hand, there are the huge gestures and loud, familiar voice, but on the other hand there are the muttered asides, the precise facial reactions, the absurd failure to accomplish the simplest tasks, like put his hat on his head without getting it caught on a cane. That's what I mean by subtle, you almost miss it and then you can't explain to yourself what it is that is so incredibly funny about what he's doing.

There's a bit of controversy about the scene where he kicks Baby LeRoy in the bottom, knocking him across the hall. There are many stories of W.C.'s working with Baby LeRoy. Apparently, on one occasion, Fields poured gin into Baby LeRoy's bottle, and when the child began throwing up and falling over, W.C. snorted, "I told you he was no trouper!"

I think it's awful that so many of W.C. Fields' films are not yet released on DVD. This is an oversight that should be rectified soon, we hope!

The Great McGonigle, ham actor extraordinaire, cares for his troupe of performers in THE OLD FASHIONED WAY, thorough chicanery, larceny & skullduggery...

Here is W. C. Fields in all of his pompous, vulgar glory: evasive, duplicitous, sneaky - utterly wonderful. Delivering dialogue in his unique buzz saw rasp, he gives out so many familiar lines that at times he almost seems to be performing a self-parody. This film brilliantly shows why Fields needed the sound cinema to let him be fully appreciated, and with Paramount giving him free rein to develop his material as he wished, it is not surprising that the film is a classic. Fans need look no further to find the essential Fields.

The romance between Judith Allen & Joe Morrison is a rather dull affair, although the young man sings well. Tammany Young plays Fields' loyal amanuensis. Movie mavens will recognize comedian Billy Bletcher as the tomato thrower & sour-visaged sheriff Clarence Wilson, both uncredited. Legend has it that Hollywood's first movie star, Florence Lawrence, derelict & forgotten, made one of her last unbilled appearances here before her 1938 suicide.

Fields found it useful to populate his films with at least one she-dragon, a female of frightful aspect against whom he could bounce off some of his best humor. This film has two: rail-thin, Nora Cecil - prim & dour as the troupe's suspicious landlady; and most especially silly Jan Duggan, horridly bejeweled & curled, as Field's wealthy target. Here was an actress, now nearly forgotten, who could easily equal in hilarity even Fields himself. It is generally overlooked how important her contribution is to the celebrated supper table scene with Fields & Baby LeRoy - one of the funniest sequences ever to appear in an American film. And her rendition of `Gathering Up The Shells On The Seashore' is a wonderful spoof of such sentimental songs as `When You And I Were Young, Maggie,' which were so popular in that era. Miss Duggan would return to briefly plague Fields in three additional films, including THE BANK DICK (1940). (She died in 1977 at the age of 95.)

Fields has included the old melodrama The Drunkard into the plot and to his credit he plays it ‘straight,' letting its honest antique sentiment speak for itself. In his own private olio, Fields makes a curtain call to show off his astonishing talent of legerdemain. It is wonderful to have his routine captured on film as he really is quite amazing - it is easy to see how at one time he was considered the world's greatest juggler. Now he is remembered as one of cinema's supreme comics.

This is the only time that W.C.Fields captured his brilliant juggling skills in a prolong scene in a feature film he starred in. In some of his late films, in decline, like SONG OF THE OPEN ROAD, he would do a portion of his billiard routine or some such work, but here he was fully involved doing the juggling as an encoure to his performance in THE DRUNKARD. And it fits neatly in that position too. Even into the 1920s it was not unusual for a stage star or manager to alter the mood of the evening by doing something unusual and opposite to what he or she had just done. While performing as Hamlet John Barrymore would do an occasional saxophone solo between acts. So why shouldn't Fields (or "the Great McGonigal") do a bit of juggling for an audience in the sticks?

Normally Fields character dominates his comedy, like Laurel and Hardy's personaes dominate their films, or like the Marx Brothers dominate theirs. But here the story line manages to blend everything better than in most of Fields films. Compare it with POPPY, where Fields (as Eustace McGargle) has to balance two story lines: his attempts to pass off his beloved adopted daughter Poppy as a missing heiress, and his attempt to hoodwink the yokels at a local fair. It would not be too hard to split that film into two movies. But here the story deals with the tribulations of a down-at-the-heels stage manager trying to hold his troop together, despite declining revenues. Actually, although it is a funny movie, THE OLD FASHIONED WAY is a study of tragic frustration. For, in the end, despite all his partial victories, McGonigal can't save his troop. He does put on the play THE DRUNKARD, but he fails to maintain the plays' "angel" Cleopatra Pepperday (Jan Dugan) as backer - he fails miserably in this, probably because he can't bring himself to put her into even one small scene as she is so bereft of talent. She is led to believe that her key line is "Here comes the Prince!", and is seen practicing it before the eyes of her friend the sheriff, who can't believe she is going to be on stage. She never does appear on stage, and is last seen crying with the sheriff trying to comfort her. McGonigal realizes he can't pay his troops salaries, nor the cost of their lodgings. And his daughter is going to leave him to marry the man she loves. Look at his face as he embraces her for what he knows is the last time. Who says Fields couldn't act? He is last seen selling some nostrum to the public, pretending to be hoarse until he drinks it. Only the faithful Tammany Young, as his shill, remains from his days of glory.

It's a real downer ending, but the comedy is superb. The scene of the trapped Fields forced to hear Dugan singing "the Sea Shell Song" is a triumph, and it is frequently forgotten that when McGonigal's daughter's boyfriend offers to audition, he says he knows the "Sea Shell Song" , almost causing Fields to have a stroke! Fields run-ins with Baby LeRoy (who even spoils his juggling routine) are a panic. It is a great little film, and one wishes it were shown more often.

Curiously enough the play THE DRUNKARD (written in the 1840s) was a leading melodrama of the 19th Century, and it would be brought back to the screen by another comic legend a few years later. Buster Keaton, as young Willum, confronted Alan Mowbray (as Lawyer Cribbs) in THE VILLAIN STILL PURSUES HER. That film too is rarely revived on television, and it would be interesting to see it and THE OLD FASHIONED WAY to compare versions of THE DRUNKARD. It is a hokey play by our standards, but in the 1840s, when temperance was such a major topic, it was very important. Still, one can't get out of one's mind the comment of a forgotten supporting bit player in THE OLD FASHIONED WAY. He's a young man, with his girlfriend, watching this play because it is the only entertainment in this one horse town. He looks somewhat more sophisticated than she does...she just looks star struck. He's observing her. "Oh, isn't it wonderful!", she gushes. "You think this is a good play?", he asks (emphasizing "this"). "Oh yes!", she responds. Well what can one say to that kind of reaction - probably quite a common one in the boondock areas of the United States in 1880 or so.

If anything, this film is a must-see for two of W.C. Field's scenes: 1) Fields' first meeting with Baby Le Roy (who also appears in It's a Gift), which is easily one of the best comedy scenes in the movies, and 2) Fields' juggling routine, for which he was very famous when he was a vaudevillian, justly so. There are several other great moments of slightly lesser value. Also, the plot and the supporting characters are consistently entertaining and endearing, so this one's a real winner. 9/10

There will never be another W.C. Fields in the entertainment world. He was one of a kind, an original, and unique in his style of comedy. He never played sympathetic characters like his peer comedians like Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, or Harold Lloyd. In this film, he plays the head of a traveling theater company. They stop in a small town where his daughter falls in love. He often plays father figures to the young women. In order for his show to succeed, he conned a local widow which I thought was wrong in how it ended up. The film is a comedy and sometimes light-hearted. W.C. Fields was a comic genius and one of the great old time performers and movie stars of his day. It's worth watching this film at least once to appreciate his comedic genius.