W. C. Fields : his follies and fortunes (1949)

CHAPTER WNE K 'ot long after he entered vaudeville, Fields had an experience which disturbed him profoundly. Walking the streets of a Midwestern city, between shows, he saw a movie marquee luridly advertising an epic film on venereal disease. Although, as is usually the case with these offerings, the letters screamed the pitfalls of sex, the lobby photos of half-dressed women were downright attractive, if not bothersome. Bosomy madames lounged in unlighted hallways, teen-age girls drew sailors toward the fatal couch, and there was evidence of gay, subsidiary sins, such as drinking and smoking. For the authorities' sake, the message was indisputably present, but on the outside it rang of a harmless bacchanal. Fields immediately bought a ticket and went in, hoping to see some naked women. His first view fell somewhat short of his expectations, being concerned with an elderly male wreck in the last stages of syphilis. If the fellow was one of the sailors in the lobby, Fields concluded, he had indeed descended far and had much better stuck to his ship, or played chess at the Seamen's Hall. None of the women ever turned up, or, if they did, they looked different, no longer emphasizing the well-turned breast or alabaster thigh but exuding, now, a very real menace. Fields 76