W.C. Fields
William Claude Dukenfield was the eldest of five children born to Cockney immigrant James Dukenfield and Philadelphia native Kate Felton. He went to school for four years, then quit to work with his father selling vegetables from a horse cart. At eleven, after many fights with... Read full bio →
Featured Characters
Roles you can spot in Whatthemovie snapshots
That's Entertainment, Part II
Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire present more golden moments from the MGM film library, this time including comedy and drama as well as classic musical numbers.
The Movie Orgy
A montage of 1950s B-movies, TV shows & vintage commercials create a nostalgic collage about aliens & monsters attacking America.
Follow the Boys
A Hollywood star (George Raft) organizes wartime shows: W.C. Fields shoots pool; Orson Welles saws Marlene Dietrich in half.
Tales of Manhattan
Ten screenwriters collaborated on this series of tales concerning the effect a tailcoat cursed by its tailor has on those who wear it. The video release features a W.C. Fields segment not included in the original theatrical release.
Never Give a Sucker an Even Break
Never Give a Sucker an Even Break is a 1941 film about a man who wants to sell a film story to Esoteric Studios. On the way he gets insulted by little boys, beat up for ogling a woman, and abused by a waitress. W. C. Fields' last starring role in a feature-length film.
The Bank Dick
The Bank Dick is a comedy from 1940 starring W.C. Fields (who also wrote the story). The film is one of the greatest works from an American comedian.
My Little Chickadee
After a scandal runs a gold-digger out of town, she meets a con artist and becomes embroiled in a string of petty deceits.
You Can't Cheat an Honest Man
Fields plays "Larsen E. Whipsnade", the owner of a shady carnival that is constantly on the run from the law. Whipsnade is struggling to keep a step ahead of foreclosure, and clearly not paying his performers, including Bergen and McCarthy, who try to coax money out of him, or in McCarthy's case, steal some outright.
The Big Broadcast of 1938
The Bellows family causes comic confusion on an ocean liner, with time out for radio-style musical acts.
Poppy
Carny con artist and snake-oil salesman Eustace McGargle tries to stay one step ahead of the sheriff but is completely devoted to his beloved daughter Poppy.
The Personal History, Adventures, Experience, & Observation of David Copperfield the Younger
Charles Dickens' classic tale of an orphaned boy's fight for happiness and the colorful characters who help and hinder him.
Mississippi
A young pacifist, after refusing on principle to defend her sweetheart's honor and being banished in disgrace, joins a riverboat troupe as a singer, acquires a reputation as a crackshot after a saloon brawl in which the villain of the piece accidentally kills himself with his own gun, falls in love with his former fianceé's sister and finally…
Man on the Flying Trapeze
Hard-working, henpecked Ambrose Ambrose Wolfinger takes off from work to go to a wrestling match with catastrophic consequences.
You're Telling Me!
Sam Bisbee is an inventor whose works (e.g., a keyhole finder for drunks) have brought him only poverty. His daughter is in love with the son of the town snob. Events conspire to ruin his bullet-proof tire just as success seems near. Another of his inventions prohibits him from committing suicide, so Sam decides to go on living..
The Old Fashioned Way
The Great McGonigle and his troupe of third-rate vaudevillians manage to stay one step ahead of the bill collectors and the sheriff.
Six of a Kind
The Whinneys share expenses for their trip to Hollywood with George and Gracie and their great Dane. A clerk in Whinney's bank has put fifty thousand dollars in a suitcase, hoping to rob Whinney on the road, but instead Whinney takes another road and is himself arrested in Nevada.
It's a Gift
After he inherits some money, Harold Bissonette ("pronounced bis-on-ay") decides to give up the grocery business, move to California and run an orange grove. Despite his family's objections and the news that the land he bought is worthless, Bissonette packs up and drives out to California with his nagging wife Amelia and children.
Tillie and Gus
Tillie and Augustus Winterbottom are thought to be missionaries when they arrive to find Phineas Pratt trying cheat the Sheridans out of her father's inheritance, including a ferry franchise and a boat. The only way to keep the franchise is to win a race against Pratt's boat.
The Pharmacist
A henpecked but stoic pharmacist tries to maintain his precarious balance while dealing with demanding customers and his dysfunctional family.
The Fatal Glass of Beer
The prodigal son of a Yukon prospector comes home on a night that "ain't fit for man nor beast."
The Barber Shop
An inept barber maintains his good-humored optimism in his small town shop despite having a hen-pecking harridan for a wife and a total lack of sartorial skill.
International House
Assorted wacky characters converge on a Chinese hotel to bid on a new invention ... television.
Alice in Wonderland
On a boring winter afternoon, Alice dreams, that she's visiting the land behind the mirror. This turns out to be a surrealistic nightmare, with all sorts of strange things happening to her, like changing her size or playing croquet with flamingos.
The Dentist
An unconventional dentist deals with patients in slapstick fashion.
Million Dollar Legs
A small country on the verge of bankruptcy is persuaded to enter the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics as a means of raising money. Either a masterpiece of absurdity or a triumph of satire, depending on your mood, but it's quite possibly the funniest movie ever made, and becomes even funnier with subsequent viewings.
If I Had a Million
A dying tycoon gives million-dollar windfalls to eight people picked from the city directory.
The Golf Specialist
At a Florida hotel, absconding miscreant J. Effingham Bellweather goes slapstick golfing with the house detective's flirtatious wife and an incompetent caddy.
So's Your Old Man
Gregory La Cava directs this comedy of errors, starring W.C. Fields as a hen-pecked, inebriated inventor who triumphantly creates unbreakable windshield glass while struggling to gain the respect of his social-climbing daughter and nagging wife.
Sally of the Sawdust
Judge Foster throws his daughter out because she married a circus man. She leaves her baby girl with Professor McGargle before she dies. Years later Sally is a dancer with whom Peyton, a son of Judge Foster's friend, falls in love. When Sally is arrested McGargle proves her real parentage.