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

W. C. Fields ment for that studio, he had a large and definite, even hysterical, following, and its members could be counted on to see each new release over and over again. Fields was always curious as to why his pictures were not shown, on their first run, at the massive palaces, such as the Radio City Music Hall. He pointed out, ruefully, that Never Give a Sucker an Even Break opened in New York at the Rialto, a small pleasure center usually given over to the exhibition of "horror" films. When the officials explained, with great patience, considering everything, that audiences in the big theaters demanded the usual ingredients of Hollywood films — well-barbered stars, a plot with a strong emetic quality, and painful, saccharine, often ungrammatical dialogue — he said, "Well, damn it, aren't my pictures rich in those things?" "Yours are mostly about cheating and robbery and terrible people, Mr. Fields," they had to tell him. The truth is that Universal, as well as Paramount and MetroGoldwyn-Mayer, despite their general hewing to the outworn and failing American movie line, are deserving of considerable honor for the boldness, forbearance, and latitude which characterized their handling of a difficult comedian for so many years. With a good deal of courage, they continued to turn out products of his that defied every law of the industry, and sometimes netted a minute financial return. Of the movies that Fields used to square old, and sometimes imaginary, accounts, The Bank Dick was his special pet. He was given a free hand in its construction, and he had a frolicsome time. He received a screen credit for the story, under his alternate pen name of Mahatma Kane Jeeves. In many particulars it was a thrilling plot. To begin with, it resulted in the only known movie to date in which the hero was wholly unregenerate throughout and still reaped every possible reward. Fields cast himself as Egbert Souse, ("accent grahve over the e")9 an improvident husband in 326