The Bank Dick (1940, Edward Cline) (Patreon)

59/100

Second viewing, last seen 1994. Fields' films are constructed almost entirely around his comic persona, which I find...fitfully funny, I guess is the best way to put it. The sour drawl's appeal quickly hits something like terminal velocity (not annoying, but no longer amusing for its own sake), and there tends to be a lot of "henpecked" material that rubs me the wrong way; on the other hand, Leo Rosten's famous remark about Fields—"Any man who hates babies and dogs can't be all bad"—encapsulates the nihilistic streak that does occasionally provoke startled laughter (as when Sousé's younger daughter beans him with a beer bottle and he responds by advancing on her carrying a huge potted plant). The Bank Dick initially leans heavily on the aspects that do little for me, tossing Fields into random scenarios ("What if he were directing a movie?") that play like stand-alone shorts rather than coalesce into a feature-length narrative. Just as I was dreading the thought of trashing a classic, however, the plot involving Og Oggilby's beefsteak-mine investment kicks in, with Sousé's efforts to stall J. Pinkerton Snoopington (gotta love these names!) creating opportunities for gags that actually build. Some of these, like Sousé trying to signal the doctor that he should prescribe bed rest for four days rather than three (eventually shouting "Fore!" while miming a golf swing for no ostensible reason), would work for almost any comedian, which is to say that they don't rely upon distracted irritability. Same's true of the climactic car chase, which features stunts that look as if they might have resulted in fatalities had anyone's timing been even slightly off. And I did appreciate the happy-ending overkill in which Sousé is gifted half of Og's stock bonanza and receives a reward for capturing the bank robber and sells a screenplay, any one of which would have sufficed for the "now he's rich" epilogue. Fields will probably never be one of my favorites, but there's about half an hour of first-rate stuff in these 72 minutes. Just wish I knew whether it's a deliberate joke that the accent aigu in Sousé repeatedly gets called an accent grave...