I am a great fan of W.C. Fields, and continue to study his life and especially his work that is available to us. This is the only movie currently available to me to judge his work as a confident silent movie actor and comedian. I admit that perhaps I am not coming to this movie with the best agenda to appreciate it as a film on it's own terms. This is a D.W. Griffiths film after all - the alleged father of movies as we know them today. Don't ask me. I wouldn't know if that's a deserved reputation or not.
I did enjoy this film. I thought Carol Dempster was good in her role, but of course I was more interested in the times when Fields is on screen. There are some specific moments for Fields fans to savour. The fleeting shots of his juggling skills, the first evidence of the subtle reactions and gestures that we know from his classic talkies of the 1930's, and the peanut cart disguise for a liquor cabinet that survives from his Zeigfield Follies days.
This won't be a movie I turn to as often as I do to the great W.C. Fields films of 1932-34, but I'm just so glad that it has not been lost to us as have been other of Fields silent film work.
I did enjoy this film. I thought Carol Dempster was good in her role, but of course I was more interested in the times when Fields is on screen. There are some specific moments for Fields fans to savour. The fleeting shots of his juggling skills, the first evidence of the subtle reactions and gestures that we know from his classic talkies of the 1930's, and the peanut cart disguise for a liquor cabinet that survives from his Zeigfield Follies days.
This won't be a movie I turn to as often as I do to the great W.C. Fields films of 1932-34, but I'm just so glad that it has not been lost to us as have been other of Fields silent film work.