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

jammed his arm in up to the shoulder. He viewed the disaster with mild, baffled concern, and the curtain fell. So enthusiastic were the troops, at the conclusion of his old act, that Fields came back for several curtain calls, in the best vaudeville tradition. As he removed his straw hat for the last applause that was ever to greet, in person, one of the most celebrated funny routines in the history of the stage, Fields' eyes, according to a bystander, were "suspiciously moist." "He seemed to know he would never do it again," a studio employee says. "Bill had slowed up the act about a third since I first directed it," Eddie Sutherland recalls. "But, even so, we finished shooting in a day and a half." As Fields left the lot, several people thanked him for his fine patriotic effort. and said how much good the scene would do. He shook their hands with self-conscious pleasure, went to the cashier and collected the $25,000 he had agreed on, then shuffled off toward his car, whistling a soundless tune, his eyes fixed on the distant horizon. %