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Poker party

Original title: Six of a Kind
  • 1934
  • Approved
  • 1h 2m
IMDb RATING
6.7/10
772
YOUR RATING
W.C. Fields, Gracie Allen, Mary Boland, George Burns, Charles Ruggles, and Alison Skipworth in Poker party (1934)
FarceSlapstickComedy

When a respectable middle-class couple take a cross-country trip by auto, they share expenses with a decidedly oddball couple, none of whom know the car carries embezzled funds.When a respectable middle-class couple take a cross-country trip by auto, they share expenses with a decidedly oddball couple, none of whom know the car carries embezzled funds.When a respectable middle-class couple take a cross-country trip by auto, they share expenses with a decidedly oddball couple, none of whom know the car carries embezzled funds.

  • Director
    • Leo McCarey
  • Writers
    • Keene Thompson
    • Douglas MacLean
    • Walter DeLeon
  • Stars
    • Charles Ruggles
    • Mary Boland
    • W.C. Fields
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    6.7/10
    772
    YOUR RATING
    • Director
      • Leo McCarey
    • Writers
      • Keene Thompson
      • Douglas MacLean
      • Walter DeLeon
    • Stars
      • Charles Ruggles
      • Mary Boland
      • W.C. Fields
    • 18User reviews
    • 12Critic reviews
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • See production info at IMDbPro
    • Awards
      • 1 win total

    Photos19

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    Top cast31

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    Charles Ruggles
    Charles Ruggles
    • J. Pinkham Whinney
    • (as Charlie Ruggles)
    Mary Boland
    Mary Boland
    • Flora Whinney
    W.C. Fields
    W.C. Fields
    • Sheriff John Hoxley
    George Burns
    George Burns
    • George Edward
    Gracie Allen
    Gracie Allen
    • Gracie Devore
    Alison Skipworth
    Alison Skipworth
    • Mrs. K. Rumford
    Bradley Page
    Bradley Page
    • Ferguson
    Grace Bradley
    Grace Bradley
    • Goldie
    William J. Kelly
    William J. Kelly
    • Gillette
    Phil Tead
    Phil Tead
    • Clerk in Newspaper Office
    William Augustin
    William Augustin
    • Traffic Cop
    • (uncredited)
    Irving Bacon
    Irving Bacon
    • Hotel Desk Clerk in Philipsburg
    • (uncredited)
    Harry Bernard
    Harry Bernard
    • Eyeshade Man
    • (uncredited)
    James Burke
    James Burke
    • Detective
    • (uncredited)
    Kathleen Burke
    Kathleen Burke
    • Woman
    • (uncredited)
    Neal Burns
    Neal Burns
    • Gillette's Secretary
    • (uncredited)
    Phil Dunham
    Phil Dunham
    • Drunk
    • (uncredited)
    Florence Enright
    • Tourist's Wife
    • (uncredited)
    • Director
      • Leo McCarey
    • Writers
      • Keene Thompson
      • Douglas MacLean
      • Walter DeLeon
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    User reviews18

    6.7772
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    Featured reviews

    El Marco

    Excellent Old-time comedy!

    A must for anyone who wants an example of a comedy that's just wonderfully ridiculous, "Six of a Kind" is a road-trip movie that's absolute nonsense.

    Ruggles and Boland make you laugh at them, with them, and for them; Burns and Allen take silly to a new level; and Fields and Skipworth show up later in the game to round out this sextette of psychos. Fields' billiard scene (reworked from one of his earlier films) is not to be missed.
    6Holdjerhorses

    Enjoyable anachronism . . . with one classic sequence

    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.
    Michael_Elliott

    Nice Comedy

    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.
    9theowinthrop

    Six Comedians in Clover, but the funniest line belongs to Bradley Page

    It is not always certain that by mixing comedians together you will produce laughter. The comics involved have to actually like or admire each other, or be willing to put up with each other's crankiness. GO WEST with the Marx Brothers had Buster Keaton write the script as a gag man. Groucho did not think too highly of Keaton's ideas, and embarrassed him at a script meeting. And though some of Keaton's gems still appear in the finished film (such as the gun that turns into a brush that turns into a gun) the film was one of the weakest the Marx Brothers ever made.

    A better film, but also affected by dueling comic egos, was W.C. Fields and Mae West in MY LITTLE CHICKADEE, which jettisoned the script for a series of duels of one liners between the leads. But the one liners were equally funny, so the film remains a success.

    But SIX OF A KIND is an example of six film comics who worked well together. The reason is simple: it is really three comic teams working together: Charlie Ruggles and Mary Boland, George Burns and Gracie Allan, and W.C. Fields and Alison Skipworth. Ruggles and Boland were paired in about half a dozen comedies during the 1930s, usually with Boland as a somewhat bossy wife, and Ruggles as a nervous wreck of a husband. Fields (usually a single act) was paired three times with Skipworth (TILLY AND GUS and IF I HAD A MILLION were the other two times). Skippy always figured out how to control or counter the larcenous activities of her man - it the present film she takes action into her own hands with the stolen money that is being searched for (she knows that the local sheriff, Fields, is not the one to trust with this). As for Burns and Allan they manage to effortlessly involve themselves with the put upon Ruggles and Boland on their cross-country trip by car.

    Ruggles quickly gets to realize what a mistake it was to agree to travel with Gracie - at one point she manages to cause him to fall off a cliff, and dangle from a branch. He is relatively helpless when she insists on 1) photographing him on his perch, and 2) correcting his grammar. The presence of George and Gracie's humongous dog ("Ran Tang Tang" is it's name) does not make travel arrangements easier for Charlie and Mary.

    Fields has some choice moments. When he insists on shouting at the quartet, he says he's allowed to do so - he's the sheriff! He also explains, during a pool game, the improbable story of how he got his undeserved moniker "Honest John". You have to listen carefully to the tale, as it is interrupted with his attempts to play pool a few times (once getting accidentally beaned by a billiard ball), but it does show that there were items that even Fields would have had no reason to steal.

    Oh, in the "Summary Line", I mentioned a forgotten actor named Bradley Page - he was the man who is responsible for the trouble that Charley Ruggles is suspected of. Bradley has to have a reason to leave town in order to catch up with the unwary Ruggles and Boland, so he telephones his girl friend. He tells her to call back his job and say that he has to leave town because somebody has died. There is a pause as he apparently hears a question shot back by the girlfriend. "ANYBODY!", he says - clearly annoyed. Although the bulk of the humor in the film is carried by the sextet of performers, Mr.Page happened to have the most amusingly unexpected line in the film.
    tedg

    Pool

    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.

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    Storyline

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    Did you know

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    • Trivia
      W.C. Fields refers to a woman named McGonigle. He took that name for his character in The Old Fashioned Way (1934). The actor had also used the name McGargle in Sally of the Sawdust (1925) and its remake, Poppy (1936).
    • Goofs
      George Burns' character Name is shown onscreen as "George Edward", but "Edwards" is consistently spoken as his surname.
    • Quotes

      Gracie De Vore: Oh, what's that?

      George Edwards: You wouldn't understand. This is a map.

      Gracie De Vore: Oh, sure, I know what a map is. It's what you take every afternoon when you're tired. I always take an afternoon map.

      George Edwards: An afternoon map?

      Gracie De Vore: Sure.

      George Edwards: I bet when you went to school, you never even reached the fifth grade.

      Gracie De Vore: Aw, don't be silly. I spent three of the happiest years of my life in the fifth grade.

    • Connections
      Featured in L'univers du rire (1982)

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    Details

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    • Release date
      • February 9, 1934 (United States)
    • Country of origin
      • United States
    • Language
      • English
    • Also known as
      • Six of a Kind
    • Filming locations
      • Paramount Studios - 5555 Melrose Avenue, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA
    • Production company
      • Paramount Pictures
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Tech specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      • 1h 2m(62 min)
    • Color
      • Black and White
    • Aspect ratio
      • 1.37 : 1

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