Poker party

Six of a Kind (1934)

*** (out of 4)

A couple (Charles Ruggles, Mary Boland) are about to go on their second honeymoon when the wife gets the bright idea to save some money by placing an ad in the paper hoping to get another couple to go along and share expenses. A couple (George Burns, Gracie Allen) agrees to go but it's just one disaster after another especially when they get to a small town with a mixed up sheriff (W.C. Fields). Considering the cast you'd think this Leo McCarey comedy would be much better known but it's pretty much been forgotten over time. While it's far from a classic comedy there are enough good moments to make it worth sitting through and especially with a 62-minute running time. The biggest thing going against the movie is its screenplay, which really isn't all that good. At just 62-minutes it seems as if the movie is broken down into six, ten-minute vignettes and it really gives the movie a somewhat uneven film. With that said, enough of those vignettes work thanks in large part to the cast. Ruggles and Boland are very good together and share some great comic timing and especially in some early scenes dealing with how much she paid for the ad. Burns and Allen really don't get too much to work with as the screenplay pretty much keeps him in the background while she gets to play dumb. Even Fields role isn't the greatest but the comic legend does what he can with it. The real star of the film goes to the wonderful dog who is downright hilarious during his scenes and especially the ones where he's pushing Ruggles around.

Comedy can date more rapidly than drama, generally. Certainly, the comedy of Burns and Allen (while still unique) is of its era. In fact, they perfected their act in their 50s TV series -- which is still delightful if you can find it.

But the value of "Six of a Kind" is more an artifact of particular players forever captured on film. Mary Boland is always excellent and she's wonderful here (but at her best a few years later in "The Women"). Charlie Ruggles essentially played the same role all his career and nobody plays Charlie Ruggles better. Alison Skipworth is barely utilized at all, here.

It's the preservation of W.C. Fields' immortal "Honest John" routine from vaudeville that earns "Six of a Kind" its place in film history. It's difficult to imagine how this routine worked from the distance of a stage. But on film it's a miracle of comic construction, timing, delivery and skill (yes he actually ricochets that billiard ball off the far end of the table where it bounces back and hits his forehead). The routine is hypnotic and hysterical, and perfectly pitched for film.

The idea in this is to take three comedy teams and combine them in one movie. The gimmick is that these represent three radically different types of humor. What happens usually is people find some things funny and ignore the others. Scan through these IMDb comments and you will see grace fall on different players in this.

The Fields poolplaying routine is priceless. I've seen it before but cannot recall where. But its inserted into this project without reference to anything else. Incidentally, it works as well as it does because there is a watcher in the frame, a deadpan face that is every bit as valuable and practiced as the actor.

That's indicative of how the experiment fails as a whole. If you know "Mad Mad Mad World," you'll know a successful example where comedic methods actually do bump up against each other and generate something resonant, rich, higher.

In this case however, the comedic models take turns. Isn't as effective.

Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

I watched Six of a Kind for W.C. Fields - he's only in it for around 10 minutes and has one long scene, the infamous pool sequence he made famous in vaudeville, and several other great moments. The reamaining 55 minutes are also delightful, thankfully, mostly due to the hilarious Charlie Ruggles as the bumbling banker J. Pinkham Whinney. He is everyone's foil. He stutters and stumbles about to our pleasure. Also, his comedy partner, Mary Boland plays his wife, Flora. Joining in the proceedings are George Burns and Gracie Allen. Boland is particularly funny near the beginning and near the end, but Gracie and Ruggles use up most of the picture. Gracie's funny, quite, but she can also get tiring. And poor George Burns has absolutely nothing to do except repeat Gracie all the time. I don't remember laughing at him once (although he has one great scene with Ruggles, where Ruggles tries desperately to get George to take Gracie and leave him and his wife alone for a while, and one with Fields, where he asks Fields to sell him a sweater; that bit is exclusively Fields', though). The situation is constantly funny: the Whinneys are going to drive to California, but to help them with expenses, George and Gracie are recruited. 8/10.

But George and Gracie's are not among them. The movie is fun and the pool table scene with WC Fields has to be among the funniest I have ever seen but Gracie and George are more irritating than comical in their roles, partly from script deficiency and partly from their interpretation. I gave it a 7 out of 10 for the rest of the cast, WC is a treasure of comedic timing and energy in this one.