In which Stabler pays his respects to one of Hitch's most influential role models.
Some years back I attended a screening at U.C.L.A. where John Cleese introduced a couple of W.C. Fields's great comedies. It was all together fitting and proper that he did this. Field's misanthropic genius, rightly hailed in the 1960s, has become a neglected subject in more recent years, perhaps owing to his abrasive racial jokes; and let's face it, he a big, fat, weird white guy who joked about booze as his own gin blossom bloomed like a prize winning rose. In 1941 Universal Studios decided Fields was washed up (despite recent hits), and at any rate he was clearly drinking himself to death; they left him alone to make Never Give a Sucker an Even Break. The result was an inspired and ridiculous fantasia about stupid films and foolish movie studios that anticipates Monty Python as succinctly as anything you could name, just about 30 years beforehand. It was his last film.
Cleese may be fighting a losing battle. A recent program notes from my local hipster's film society belittled Fields, and again the racial jokes and stereotyping may be the culprits. It is worth remembering however, that unlike a figure like Rush Limbaugh, part of who's Schick may trace back to Fields, he really WAS an equal opportunity offender (see the selfish, moronic Republican customer in The Pharmacy) and his central target was always Mainstreet, U.S.A. Consider his 1940 film, The Bank Dick.
Fields is a small town drunk and ne'er-do-well awarded a position of responsibility at the local bank on account of a bogus act of supposed heroism. Yes, Fields does brandish a bullhorn later in the film. He then induces his idiot future son-in-law Og Oggilby (just an average guy looking for a piece of the American Dream) to steal an advance from the bank to buy stock in the worthless "Beefsteak Mines." When the bank examiner shows up unexpectedly, Fields uses every trick in the book to distract his attention as encroaching final doom closes in. All in all, the most socially relevant film of 2009.
Despite its uncompromisingly caustic tone (The Bank Dick has none of the balancing sweetness of an earlier classic like It's A Gift), I sense an idealism in Fields. His hero was Twain, and he seemed to believe in the ability of Americans to laugh at themselves, not just their nextdoor neighbor. This may be what has put Feilds out of fashion in our present era of identity comedy and snark. Our new Drunken Misanthropes have intellectual airs and pride themselves on not listening to those who trouble them with the truth. And in the world of infotainment, we look to them not for laughs, but for guidance.
“The enemies of intolerance cannot be tolerant." • "If it is an offense to justice to hold people who may have been victims of mistaken identity or of vendettas by other factions, then it is also an offense to justice to release psychopathic killers who believe that they have divine permission to throw acid in the faces of girls who want to attend school." • "Don't be such a lesbian!
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