W. C. Fields plays Ambrose Wolfinger--a nice guy who seems to put up with too much from almost everyone around him. His wife is a harpy, his mother-in-law a nosy shrew and his brother-in-law a lazy good-for-nothing. Yet despite being put upon by this trio, he seems to accept it all in stride. When he takes a day off work to play hooky, things backfire and Ambrose's life seems a mess.
I have long loved the films of W.C. Fields, so I enjoyed this movie more than the average non-fan might. Non-Fields fans probably will complain that this film has almost no plot whatsoever and is basically Fields slowly going about doing rather dull day to day activities. For example, almost a third of the film consists of Fields' bedtime routine and some bums breaking into his basement! But, to Fields fans, it IS worth watching the great comedian as he does practically nothing because he did practically nothing in the funniest way! While this doing practically nothing is a trademark of many fields films, in this one he does even less and there is even less plot than you'll find in THE BANK DICK, IT'S A GIFT and even the surreal NEVER GIVE A SUCKER AN EVEN BREAK. And, like most of his best films, by the end everything seems to have worked out for the better--though here the ending did seem awfully premature and anticlimactic compared to many of his other films. While I would never place this film among his greatest, it is clever and worth seeing even if it is a second-rate Fields outing.
For his best films, I strongly recommend IT'S A GIFT (his best film), YOU'RE TELLING ME and THE BANK DICK. Also, why this film was entitled MAN ON THE FLYING TRAPEZE is totally beyond me or anyone else to understand!
I have long loved the films of W.C. Fields, so I enjoyed this movie more than the average non-fan might. Non-Fields fans probably will complain that this film has almost no plot whatsoever and is basically Fields slowly going about doing rather dull day to day activities. For example, almost a third of the film consists of Fields' bedtime routine and some bums breaking into his basement! But, to Fields fans, it IS worth watching the great comedian as he does practically nothing because he did practically nothing in the funniest way! While this doing practically nothing is a trademark of many fields films, in this one he does even less and there is even less plot than you'll find in THE BANK DICK, IT'S A GIFT and even the surreal NEVER GIVE A SUCKER AN EVEN BREAK. And, like most of his best films, by the end everything seems to have worked out for the better--though here the ending did seem awfully premature and anticlimactic compared to many of his other films. While I would never place this film among his greatest, it is clever and worth seeing even if it is a second-rate Fields outing.
For his best films, I strongly recommend IT'S A GIFT (his best film), YOU'RE TELLING ME and THE BANK DICK. Also, why this film was entitled MAN ON THE FLYING TRAPEZE is totally beyond me or anyone else to understand!