Customer Reviews

Bank Dick [VHS]

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The world of W.C. FIELDS is a very peculiar one ; it is filled with clouds of smoke and empty bottles, with terrible children deserving to be lashed to blood and with nightmarish wives and mother-in-laws. Always ready to help his fellow companions, our poor hero must also cope with heartless bankers and dishonest crooks (yes, they exist ! ).

If you are a movie lover, this particular world deserves a royal place on your library's shelves, W.C. FIELDS playing, in my opinion, in the same league than Buster Keaton, Charles S. Chaplin, the Marx Brothers or Jerry Lewis. The League of the Champions of the Absurdness.

Nevertheless, the price of this Criterion release, without bonus features, except for english subtitles, could discourage the average amateur. THE BANK DICK lasts only 74 minutes but offers two or three scenes worthy to appear in an anthology of the best comic scenes ever filmed. I specially loved the car chase, involving three cars, a motorcycle and a W.C. FIELDS destructing his car while driving at 70 miles per hour. But dialogs are also extremely funny, completing the pleasure that you are certainly going to have with one of the Masters of comic movies.

A DVD dedicated to mother-in-laws.

First of all, this is one of the funniest movies ever made. There is not one scene that isn't hillarious. As for one reviewer's comment that the sound and picture are out of synch, this is almost certainly a problem with the player's DSP chip (see Sound & Vision magazine's article on this; Sony knows all about it).

The Bank Dick stands tall, even amongst Fields' other brilliant movies, You're Telling Me and the sensational Its A Gift. Our hero, Egbert Souse (pronounced "Sue-Say") has a Married With Children existence--until he accidentally foils a bank robbery.

The Bank Dick has my all time favorite Fields line: J. Frothingham Waterbury, a stock swindler, says "I want to show you I'm honest in the worst way!".

Fields also paints a less than flattering picture of miserly bankers, the rich, and people who only treat you well when you have money. What makes this so funny, of course, is, its mostly true!

The Bank Dick is pure Fields and the best of his feature films (with My Little Chickadee a close second). The comedy is timeless; most of the jokes, although written 60 years ago , are relevant today. Supporting cast is brilliant. A must have for all classic comedy fans.

Take a classic comedy and combine it with a company dedicated to bringing you the best quality products on the market and what you get is a DVD that is worth the money! If you want to really enjoy WC Fields in one of his last truly great films, get this version! The print is pristine and the sound is cleaner and clearer than I have ever heard it. It's a lot of money, but worth it for such a good movie.

This is not a review the movie itself in detail here. Most people know this classic, and a lot of people have done that already. This is for the DVD. I am dissapointed they couldn't of done a commentary track, but I will forgive them since it is such a nice print of the movie.

The Criterion edition is for movie lovers and lovers of WC Fields. I hate wasting money or spending extra when not needed, but this is worth it. It's quality.

I've seen "The Bank Dick" so many times, it's a little hard to review it. It's been on TV for decades and was probably one of the first movies I ever saw. I think I like it so much because it, as well as its star, W.C. Fields, is quite atypical of the Hollywood of the time [1940]. Indeed, the very fact that Fields became a star who commanded a fortune is a happy anomaly in movie history. He had a bulbous nose, he was overweight, and he is reputed to have been drunk much of the time, both on the set and off. He didn't like children or dogs. He drove the Hayes office, the self-censorship arm of the industry at the time, mad with his double entendres and with his characters who lied, cheated stole, and, worst of all, almost never paid for their sins. There are several reasons he was so successful, I think. The primary one is that he was relentlessly funny. Another is that he was always honest because, in his poking fun at everyone, he never forgot to include himself. Finally, he appealed then, as he still does today, to those who love to see hypocrisy satirized.

Like all Fields movies, "The Bank Dick" barely has a plot at all. It simply careens from one improbably situation to the next. Fields is Egbert Souse of Lompoc, CA. He lives with his wife, mother-in-law and two daughters. They constantly henpeck and ridicule him. One day a movie company comes to town, and somehow Souse finds himself hired as the picture's director. This leads to his apprehending a bank robber, which, in turn, leads to his getting a job as a guard at the bank. Then, there is the character who comes along selling stock in a failed mine. One of the hapless buyers is souse's future son-in-law, who `borrows' the money from the bank for a few days, only to have a bank auditor show up moments later. You call this a plot? Well, forget about the story. It's all just an excuse for the wonderful physical comedy, the sharp, witty dialog, and Field's remarkable line deliveries.

I should mention that Fields surrounded himself with some of the great character actors of his time. The cast of "The Bank Dick" includes Una Merkel, Cora Witherspoon, Frank Pangborn, Grady Sutton and Shemp Howard, who later became famous as one of the Three Stooges.

I've always been a big fan of W.C. Fields and I've always been disappointed in the quality (and quantity) of his work that is available. With the 6 short films, Criterion is doing a great job of preserving W.C. Fields for future generations.

I wouldn't argue that some of his other films (such as "Never give a sucker...") are better than "The Bank Dick", but they're not available on DVD (let alone after being restored as this film has been).

I won't rehash the plot, except to say that the notion of a petty criminal always keeping one step ahead from being found out is continually repeated and nobody did it better than Fields. A big part of the enjoyment of watching Field's movies is to find out how he lands on his feet. Field's survives in his world like a cat; with grace and only barely acknowledging what has been going on around him.

W.C. Fields was not only the funniest man ever to appear in movies, he was a great actor, too. Some of his finest (and funniest) acting is contained in "The Bank Dick" as Fields plays straight man to a variety of miscreants, hostile natives, hateful family members, establishment types and others fully worthy of his misanthopy. Priceless scenes include his barroom soliloqueys (with Shemp Howard), his debut as a "director," and his visit to a "grateful" bank. Splendid!

I enjoyed this film for both it's dynamic comic spirit as well as it's dynamic non-linear avante-gardists leanings as well. W.C Fields in a thoroughly contemporary ,and in someways revelatory, performance offers his own distinct views on alcoholism, misogyny, and capitalism in a manner that exceeds the confines of 1940 and perhaps even more astonishing 2000. A poet and a genuine romantic.

this movie may cause you to lose faith in the possibilities of comedy in the new millenium. W.C. Fields was the best curmudgeon ever and this is one of his greatest films. His wife and his children hate him. Only his friendly neighborhood bartender (played by 4th or 5th stooge, Shemp Howard) loves him. As usual, W.C. gets himself into loads of trouble and finds a way to get out of it with a bunch of money. The final chase scene is rivaled only by It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, What's up, Doc?, and Seven Chances in it's superfluity of gags and danger.

Watch this movie....or die!

Field's diehard fans debate whether this film or It's A Gift was his greatest. I prefer It's A Gift, but I still love this film very much.

Here the family relations have completely disintegrated to the point that little Evelyn Del Rio is bouncing a ketchup bottle among other things off his head. It's more a state of war with Fields as the crazy grandfather rather than Fields as the henpecked husband.

Some of Fields's regulars are here: Grady Sutton plays Og Oggilby ("...sounds like a bubble in a bathtub...") who is not an imbecile but very much a "luddie duddie." Russell Hicks is great as J. Frothingham Waterbury,the crooked beefstake (beefsteak?) mines stock grifter. Shemp Howard (of the Three Stooges)plays Joe the Bartendar. Bill Wolfe is funny just standing there in the Black Pussy Cat Cafe and being examined by Dr. Stall. Jan Duggan is funny as the mother of the little boy with the cap gun Fields attempts to apprehend. Franklin Pangborn almost steals the movie as J. Pinkerton Snoopington, bank examiner.

The plot? It's "...improbable, impossible" as Franklin Pangborn said in another Fields movie. It only makes sense because Fields is in it. It ends in a classic chase scene that even manages to include a 1930's scene out of the WPA or CCC. But along the way we are treated to a double noggin of his rich plays on the language and his willingness to play the rascal.

This was one of the movies that got frequent play in the W.C. Fields
revival of the mid to late 1960's.