Saturday, October 11, 2008

So's Your Old Man

[the film was never released in Finland]. US (c) 1926 Famous Players-Lasky. D: Gregory La Cava. SC: J. Clarkson Miller - based on the story "Mr. Bisbee's Princess" by Julian Street. CAST: W.C. Fields (Sam Bisbee), Alice Joyce (Princess Lescaboura), Charles Rogers (Kenneth Murchison), Kittens Reichert (Alice Bisbee), Marcia Harris (Mrs. Bisbee), Julia Ralph (Mrs. Murchison), Frank Montgomery (Jeff), Jerry Sinclair (Al). Print: LoC, 6072 ft /22 fps/ 73 min, original in English, e-subtitles in Italian, grand piano: Philip C. Carli. Viewed at Le Giornate del Cinema Muto, Pordenone, Cinema Verdi, 10 October, 2008.

Excellent print. - I saw this film for the first time. It is already a W.C. Fields masterpiece, a sharp and strong satire with a heavy dose of eccentricism. - Fields as Sam Bisbee plays an inventor who has invented a non-breakable windshield. - The social division line of the town of Waukeagus is strong. The Bisbees belong to the wrong side, and the Murchisons to the right side. But as Kenneth Murchison falls in love with Alice Bisbee, there is an encounter between the two families. - Sam takes his car to Washington, but as his misparked car is hauled away, he tests wrong cars with disastrous results. - In the train back home he considers suicide but meets Princess Lescaboura, who later helps him miraculously as Sam is already almost in the gutter. - There is another rich social scandal at the founding of the Country and Golf Club of Waukeagus. W.C. Fields performs the same routine as in The Golf Specialist. - Remade as You're Telling Me! - Alice Joyce is charming as the Princess, whom Bisbee always believes to be a fake.

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