Tillie And Gus has Alison Skipworth and W.C. Fields respectively in the title roles in this shortest of the feature films of W.C. Fields. It runs slightly less than an hour, but a lot of laughs get packed in. I also think if the term can be applied to Fields, he's at his most heroic in this film that is too rarely seen.
Fields and Skipworth worked well together in their part of the Paramount classic If I Had A Million so Adolph Zukor decided to give them a shot at a feature. I only wish they had done more joint projects.
Skipworth is unusual because she's an equal partner with Fields in chicanery. Usually Fields is married to a bossy tyrant like Kathleen Howard, but Skipworth is more an equal. She loves him despite his ways, but doesn't take anything off him either.
Aunt Tillie and Uncle Gus are called in by their niece Julie Bishop and her husband Phillip Trent who've been the victim of a bottom feeding shyster played deliciously by Clarence Wilson. All they have left is a ferry boat that has seen better days and Wilson is determined to get his hands on that too.
It all gets settled in a boat race and Fields sabotages the opposing boat as nicely as the Marx Brothers sabotaged La Traviata in A Night At The Opera. Seeing Fields in one of those old diving suits is funny enough, what he does to the boat is hilarious.
Bishop thinks her uncle and aunt are missionaries, they're actually a pair con artists. But they never had a greater mission than helping a family member. Blood is thicker, just ask the Corleones.
In any event this film proves you don't mess with Tillie And Gus.
Fields and Skipworth worked well together in their part of the Paramount classic If I Had A Million so Adolph Zukor decided to give them a shot at a feature. I only wish they had done more joint projects.
Skipworth is unusual because she's an equal partner with Fields in chicanery. Usually Fields is married to a bossy tyrant like Kathleen Howard, but Skipworth is more an equal. She loves him despite his ways, but doesn't take anything off him either.
Aunt Tillie and Uncle Gus are called in by their niece Julie Bishop and her husband Phillip Trent who've been the victim of a bottom feeding shyster played deliciously by Clarence Wilson. All they have left is a ferry boat that has seen better days and Wilson is determined to get his hands on that too.
It all gets settled in a boat race and Fields sabotages the opposing boat as nicely as the Marx Brothers sabotaged La Traviata in A Night At The Opera. Seeing Fields in one of those old diving suits is funny enough, what he does to the boat is hilarious.
Bishop thinks her uncle and aunt are missionaries, they're actually a pair con artists. But they never had a greater mission than helping a family member. Blood is thicker, just ask the Corleones.
In any event this film proves you don't mess with Tillie And Gus.