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I’ve been waiting for years to get to W.C. Fields’ IT’S A GIFT and today is the day I’m finally getting around to it. Easily one of my favorite comedies ever. I’ve reviewed THE BANK DICK previous to this and while I do hold that film in high regard and feel it’s the best of the Universal films, there are a few films Fields made at Paramount in the mid 30’s which I view more so as the apex of his art - IT’S A GIFT being the best of them. At Paramount, there is a better balance between the comedy and the domestic situation and make no mistake about it, the two are intertwined. This film basically consists of almost nothing but brilliantly constructed comic skits and that family dynamic is either fully or partially involved in every bit.
Take the shaving scene in the beginning, for example. Fields is in the bathroom shaving. His young adult daughter knocks on the door and says she needs to use the bathroom. Fields allows her in because he’s only shaving. The daughter then proceeds to completely take over the mirror Fields is using to do her make up. This to me is the main theme of IT’S A GIFT - that being she is completely oblivious to the presence of her father. Just about everybody is oblivious to everyone as a matter of fact, leading to a tragic family dynamic and by further extension, a tragic town dynamic. Yet, from this tragedy, Fields is able to mine great comedy. The daughter’s obliviousness to Field’s presence leads to some excellent physical comedy. She pushes Fields to the side away from the mirror and brushes her hair back in his face, leading to trademark understated Fields comic reactions. Now that the mirror on the wall has been taken over by the daughter he takes a pocket mirror and hangs it on the ceiling (think Shemp in BRIDELESS GROOM). The mirror is moving all over the place, so Fields get discombobulated trying to shave to hysterical results. He finally moves the mirror hanging from the ceiling facing the floor while he lies down on a chair looking at the mirror on the ceiling, a very funny sight. Of course he continues to shave in such an unconventional manner while unknowingly to him, his daughter leaves the room. His wife then comes in and sees him shaving like this and berates him, his alibi of his daughter being at the other mirror no longer valid since she’s left. A really brilliant scene.
Fields wife, ah yes. She is played by Kathleen Howard and Stooge fans, let me tell you, her performance is worthy of such a sacred last name. If any of you know of a better nagging wife on screen, please point it out to me, but this one is hard to beat. Ms. Howard’s ability to rant, rave, gaslight, berate and insult Fields in lengthy monologues with the all the right words highly accented is in a class all by itself. Poor Fields, late at night they get a wrong phone number phone call asking for the maternity ward. She accuses Fields, wondering why someone would call Fields for a maternity ward, as if he fathered a child instead of realizing it was just a wrong number. Another situation where she is completely oblivious to his need for sleep and misunderstands her husband’s motives. Another epic monologue peruses, causing Fields, who needs sleep, to sleep outside on the porch.
The porch scene is a masterpiece. Three stories high of porches, Fields is on the second floor. It is an avalanche of misfortunes for Fields that prevents him from getting sleep. There’s the bench he’s trying to sleep on that keeps falling down. There’s cocoanuts falling methodically downstairs, Baby Leroy from above dropping grapes on him from below, the neighbor from above having a conversation about shopping with a lady from below with Fields caught in the middle and best of all, the insurance salesman looking for Carl LaFong. The insurance salesman asks Fields if he knows Carl LaFong, “Capital L, small a, capital F, small o, small n, small g. LaFong, Carl LaFong.” I’m smiling as I type that. Fields then says he doesn’t know Carl LaFong and goes on to spell the name the same way the insurance salesman did. The insurance salesman, oblivious to Fields unfriendly nature and need for sleep, runs up and tries to sell Fields insurance anyway. To further advance the misunderstanding, the wife comes out and berates Fields for making noise and inviting his friend up to see him. Just a pure masterpiece of a scene, one of those scenes I don’t feel I have the words to do justice. It’s just gag after gag rolling into each other and it goes on for a good ten minutes.
The scene at the store Fields owns with Mr. Muckle the blind man and the angry customer asking for cumquats is another classic. Mr. Muckle is blind and wrecks the store in great physical fashion while the man wanting cumquats gets more and more irate as he keeps getting ignored. The oblivious theme works both ways, Fields to the need of the customer and the customer realizing there’s a man in the store Fields needs to attend to so the store doesn’t get destroyed. Another very funny scene.
Fields eventually sells the store after his Uncle Bean dies and much to his family’s dismay - the obliviousness theme again - and buys an orange grove in California that can’t grow oranges. Fields is oblivious to the plea of his daughter’s boyfriend that the orange grove is bad, insists it’s not and moves out there and buys it anyway. The trip to California leads to the wonderful scene of the family obliviously trespassing on the rich people’s property and destroying the place in a messy picnic which involves feathers flying from pillows, food left on the ground and sprinkler systems let off. (Spoiler alert) Once Fields gets to the orange grove and sees how decrepit it is, the movie momentarily takes a sadness you’d see in a Chaplin film, yet Fields never feels sorry for himself. His family is about to leave him, his car breaks down, yet luck is on the way when his property is bought by people who want to build a race track on his property. Fields gets the money to buy his dream orange grove and takes and drinks away in a happy ending.
Drink, that’s something else worth mentioning. Unlike a lot of other Fields films, the drinking isn’t part of the humor here. He only drinks when he’s trying to escape the family in the tent at the campgrounds, when he’s at his lowest moment at the orange grove and to celebrate at the end. Drink is only used at special moments here. I also want to add, speaking of the campground scene, Fields only seems truly happy when he’s singing that song with the young men and reminiscing about the old days. For that brief moment, he’s away from the family.
So yes, IT’S A GIFT is a must see film. A totally bleak family dynamic that stems wonderful comedy. Fields and Kathleen Howard are both in top form here and there are enough memorable routines in this 68 minute movie to fill a three hour film. Worth mentioning this is a partial remake of the Fields silent film IT’S THE OLD ARMY GAME, a film I will discuss at another time. While silent Fields is fascinating, Fields film art did not get perfected until sound came in and never more so than in a IT’S A GIFT. Make it a point to see this one if you haven’t already.
