THE BANK DICK, made at Universal Studios in 1940, is probably W.C. Fields’s most famous and beloved film. I really enjoy it myself and consider it the best of the Universal films, but full confession - when it comes to Fields, I am first and foremost a Paramount guy. There is a four film run he did at that studio from 1934 - 1935 which in my opinion ranks among any comedian’s best four films. At Universal, the films got more surreal, the drunkenness more pronounced and battles with children more violent. The caricature the public knows W.C. Fields for today came to the fore. Look, I like that caricature, and while those elements were there before, they were mixed in with more physical comedy, more heart, and more thought out domestic situations at Paramount. So anything I say about THE BANK DICK that may sound like anything less than praise, please don’t take it as a knock. I really like this film on its own merit, it’s just those four Paramount films cast such a huge shadow in my mind.
I mentioned the domestic situation of the Paramount films. Well, THE BANK DICK has a domestic situation as well that really gets focused on in the beginning and then glossed over until the end. I think Fields (who wrote this film under the clever pseudonym “Mahatma Kane Jeeves”), used great judgement on when to use the family. This family is more surreal and unlikable than any of the Paramount families (which in and of themselves weren’t Ozzie and Harriet). Adding to surrealism is the way the background music of “Home Sweet Home” is played in the background when they are on screen. The wife and mother in law are bitter Prohibitionists who can’t offer a bit of praise for Fields, even when the newspapers praise him for catching robbers. Why, it was at the bank that has their mortgage, it deserves to get robbed! The younger daughter and Fields seem to have a slugfest of a relationship where she hits him and he tries to retaliate by throwing a vase! The older daughter, played by wonderfully by Una Merkel, is a combination of bi polar and aloof in her opening scene, which highly contrasts to the sympathetic older daughters he had at times at Paramount. So yeah, the surrealism of this family has really been juiced to the maximum here. (Spoiler alert). Towards the end, it all pays off in a wonderful joke about how civil they suddenly are to Fields when he runs into money. A wonderful bit of domestic commentary that definitely had me laughing.
As for Fields himself, the drink angle is really being played heavily here. Older films never really hid the fact Fields drank, but the drinking dominates THE BANK DICK a bit more. It’s established in Field’s opening scene what a drunk he is. Fields drinking habit leads him and us viewers to one of the all time great Fields hang outs, The Black Pussy Cat Cafe. We get to watch Fields elegantly drink shots at the bar while dipping his fingers in fresh water. Only Fields can make an art of such an act. It is the set piece of him being conned for The Beefsteak Mines which makes me wonder one thing - why didn’t my grandmother have a paisley shawl? It is the setting where Fields gets poor bank examiner Franklin Pangborn a mickey to delay him coming in a few days from examining the books. It is also the setting where we get to witness bartender Shemp Howard! It’s taken me a long time to appreciate Shemp’s performance here. For years I lamented the fact Shemp had few lines, but I’ve come to realize Shemp’s role is to be a reactionary comic to all the tall tales Fields is spinning throughout the film and he does quite an admirable job in the role.
Speaking of tall tales, on screen Fields always would spin tall tales or ramble on forever, but never better than in THE BANK DICK. I love watching him spew B.S. about being a director in the Mack Sennett days or the tall tale he keeps spinning about the knife that was pulled on him, which seems to get bigger every time he tells the tale. Extremely funny when he pantomimes the knife to his boss at the bank, needing to move across the room and move a chair away to show the length of the knife. Love the way he rambles on to Franklin Pangborn about all the chili and other foods when Pangborn is clearly sick and can’t even think about food. Half the time, it’s not even important what Fields is rambling about, it’s just amazing one man is capable of letting out so much hot air.
Other scenes of note is him flirting with the blonde secretary and offering her a silver plated napkin ring, which she just hilariously discards. What a beautifully bizarre thing to offer a young female, so funny. When Fields young daughter smacks him over the head with a megaphone in that wonderful directing scene, he utters, “Godfrey Daniels. Mother of Pearl.” That’s code for “God damn. Son of a bitch.” W.C. Fields had to invent his own way of swearing to get past the Hays Office. I love the fact Fields gets yelled at for reprimanding a kid in a cowboy suit for playing with a plastic gun. Today, people would think the kid should get reprimanded and I bet the toy would not be allowed in a bank. Changing cultural norms, a fascination of old movies. I will also say, like lots of Universal Abbott and Costello movies, there is a crazy chase in this one, but done slightly better here. The story is engaging enough to warrant a chase this time and there are enough close ups of Fields getting in lines where the character is not lost. Still not my favorite moment in the movie, but passable.
W.C. Fields never asked to have his character liked on screen, just to be comical and entertaining. This definitely holds true for THE BANK DICK, a film which boasts some very entertaining Fields in addition to a surreal world containing Franklin Pangborn, Una Merkel, Grady Sutton, and some dude named Shemp. Hell of an awesome cast there. Again, in my world, the shadow of YOU’RE TELLING ME, IT’S A GIFT, THE OLD FASHIONED WAY and THE MAN ON THE FLYING TRAPEZE looms large over the Universal films and I wish people knew those films as well as this one or the other Universal stuff. It’s all good though, and THE BANK DICK rocks the casbah. However, if you’re a casual Fields person and this is all you know, please scope out those above mentioned films.
