Monte Brice
2021W.C. Fields: 6 Short Films
Leslie Pearce, Edwin Middleton
W.C. Fields
A Criterion compilation of "six gems that feature the comic genius at his peak: The Golf Specialist, Pool Sharks (silent), The Pharmacist, The Fatal Glass of Beer, The Barber Shop, and, of course, the notorious The Dentist." Pool Sharks is his first film ever, released in 1915; the rest are all five of Fields’ talking shorts, released from 1930 to 1933.
W.C. Fields: 6 Short Films
Take a Chance
Laurence Schwab, Monte Brice
James Dunn, June Knight
Take a Chance was based on the hit Broadway musical of the same name, though only one of the original songs, Eadie Was a Lady, has been retained. The thinnish plot involves the misadventures of a pair of pickpockets, played on Broadway by Jack Haley and Sid Silvers and on film by James Dunn and Cliff “Ukelele Ike” Edwards.
Take a Chance
Casey at the Bat
Monte Brice
Wallace Beery, Ford Sterling
Casey is a slovenly junk man in a turn of the twentieth century hick town who has a remarkable ability to play baseball. An unscrupulous New York scout signs him up, so Casey and his equally dishonest manager go to the big leagues. Eventually, the scout and manager conspire to get him drunk and bet against him for a crucial game with the pennant at stake.
Casey at the Bat
A Million Me's
Monte Brice
Paul Stanton, William Hillpot
Lee at the piano singing a fragment of a blues when a young man enters her home with a pile of records: - Hello Miss Morse. I've brought over those records you just made for us. Oh, they're great. We'll be able to make the movie next week. Lee replies: I don't think so.
A Million Me's
The Plasterers
Monte Brice
Charles O'Donnell, Jack Blair
A bizarre comedy short in which knockabout comics Charles O'Donnell and Jack Blair show up to repair a woman's house, but spend more time wrecking things and doing pratfalls. There's even a pantomime horse that causes trouble!
The Plasterers
The Radio Murder Mystery
Monte Brice
Louis Sobol, Richard Gordon
This short, introduced and closed by Louis Sobol, features Richard Gordon as ‘Sherlock Holmes of the air.’ Not long after one broadcast explaining in a story how a murder was committed an actual murder is committed using the same technique. The police then call Gordon in to help solve the crime. The rest of this short with an ‘all-star cast’ (as the title card announces) includes Jack Fulton, Alice Joy and Peggy Healy. The latter 3 singers, however, do not participate in the plot of the 21 minute short, but provide musical interludes to it.
The Radio Murder Mystery
