Comwayon A Disappointing Continuation

AnhartLinkin This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Sarita Rafferty There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Smoreni Zmaj Every year, United States National Film Preservation Board selects up to 25 films of cultural, historical and aesthetic significance, which will be preserved by being included in the National Film Registry. This one was chosen in 1992 and it's considered to be one of the best comedies ever. I really have to ask - why? Although it lasts just a bit over an hour it successfully bored me so much that I fell asleep sitting at the table. In my opinion, the only thing worth seeing in this movie is hilarious, and for its time excellently shot, car chase scene. I do not recommend.5/10

JohnHowardReid Although not as funny as the same team's "Give a Sucker an Even Break" (1941) – even though it re-uses some of the same gags including the much-reprinted car chase finale – there's still plenty of typical Fields' humor in this entry. True, the plot does take up some precious screen time that could have been better used for comedy and Franklin Pangborn's study of J. Pinkerton Snoopington seems to run forever (although it does conclude with a marvelous gag which almost – I stress almost – makes up for all the tedium and marking time that has gone before. The rest of the players are first class – particularly Russell Hicks and Grady Sutton. And music director. Charles Previn has provided a first-class score. In all, a very entertaining 74 minutes!

The_Film_Cricket W.C. Fields was invaluable as a comedian simply because he doesn't fit. Like Groucho or The Tramp or Mae West or Buster Keaton's stone face, Fields was such a strong personality that any situation or plot was simply an excuse to let him loose and see what kind of damage he could do.The first time that I saw Fields was in a bizarre 1933 short called The Fatal Glass of Beer. That was the one where he goes to the door of his snowbound cabin and proclaims "And it ain't a fit night out for man nor beast." Then is rewarded with a face-full of fake snow. That's also the one where he utters the immortal words "I think I'll go milk an Elk." From there, I set out to see everything of Fields that I could get my hands on. I have noticed an interesting thing: In nearly every film, in nearly every short film, he always plays the same character, the same irascible, mean-spirited little man who hates children and dogs and whose entire existence is the endless pursuit of the drink and the misadventure therein. The experience is something akin to hanging out with the bad kids at school, you can see them getting away with doing bad stuff but it is a fun journey even if you only sit on the sidelines.Of his features, The Bank Dick is my favorite. He wrote the screenplay himself but the credit went under his pseudonym Mahatma Kane Jeeves (say that name out loud slowly). Like most of the great comedians of the time, he was given control over his own project but still had to battle the Hays office over content. For instance, the Black Pussy Cat Cafe was written in the original script as The Black Pussy Cafe and Snack Bar. Joe Breen and the Hays office changed the name even though somehow the film's title remained.He plays henpecked Egbert Sousé, his usual lecherous drunk who accidentally foils a bank robbery and is offered a job as the bank's guard. A light bulb goes off in his brain to employ his good-for-nothing future son-in-law in an embezzlement scheme to siphon bank funds into a fly-by-night mining enterprise. From there, it is just one damn thing after another. The movie has no real structure and in any other comedy that would be a problem but for Fields it's just a series of set ups and comic pay-offs that have no real connection. Like The Marx Brothers, the plot is more or less an afterthought. The problem in describing Fields is that he can't really be described in words, he's an experience, not an explanation.The persona that Fields created has, today, fallen out of favor. After a brief revival in the 70s, the generation that followed has yet to discover him and I don't think they ever will. Today, in these politically correct times, Fields drunk act doesn't fit. We take alcoholism seriously and a man whose happy pursuit of the sauce frames his very existence doesn't seem in step with the times. But for me, I am bound to see comedy for what it is. If is makes me laugh, it's not my business whether it's politically correct or not. That's why Hollywood had such a problem with Fields, he didn't fit the good-natured mold they wanted to fashion for him.

Robert J. Maxwell I probably enjoy this at least as much as any of W. C. Fields' other flicks but I think it helps a lot to be in the proper mood. As an actor, Fields was sui generis. His gags, his gestures, his characters were all his own. He was even able to inject a bit of the Philadelphia vaudevillian into his Mister Macawber. It's hardly possible to imagine his playing a straight part or sharing the screen with an equal, as Bob Hope did with Bing Crosby. There was nobody like him.Therefore, whether or not you appreciate his comedy is going to depend almost entirely on your ability to appreciate the on-screen persona of W. C. Fields.You have to be in the proper mood to appreciate his bits of business. (The stories themselves are of practically no consequence.) You must ask yourself serious questions, such as: "When the ex-juggler tried to put his hat on and sets it on top of his upraised cane instead, is that funny?" Are vile and politically incorrect habits like smoking and drinking amusing in themselves? Does it deserve a chuckle when a man's family hates him so much that they insult him in the third person when he's present? How about a man shuffling down the street of an indifferent town and muttering to himself about life's tribulations? I usually find his movies full of stretches of rough road -- a plump man with a turnip for a nose who shows a startle reaction to every unexpected sound or sight. But there are some good gags sprinkled along the dusty miles. "Allow me to offer you a firm handshake," says the bank president, barely touching Fields' fingers with his own. And Fields in the Black Pussy Cat Cafe interrupting an intense conversation to turn to the bartender with a curious squint to ask, "By the way, did I spend a twenty dollar bill here last night? I did? Whew, what a load off my mind. I thought I'd lost it." Or shepherding the dreaded bank examiner into the saloon, intending to incapacitate him before he can get to the books, and then slyly inquiring of the bar tender, "Has, er, Michael Finn been here today?" (Boys and girl, a "mickey finn" was slang for an alcoholic drink into which so-called knock-out drops had been placed, probably chloral hydrate.) If you see nothing funny in Fields ing his family at the breakfast table, swimming through a sea of humiliating derogations, and getting beaned by an object thrown by his young daughter just as he's walking out the door -- well, that's not too funny. But how about if the family continues with their aspersions for a bit more, until we cut to the still-open door and see Fields struggling to carry a potted plant the size of a garbage can inside in order to smash it over his little girls' head?