User Reviews

This is one film that most W C Fields Fans would want to buy--if it were available on video from Universal, the video source that has the deepest, darkest vaults in the video business. What Universal is not releasing (among many other Fields films) is a saga of Fields in his "Henpecked Husband" role as an office manager who has the answers to everything in the interior of his massive roll top desk. He is unappreciated by his wife, mother-in-law, and do nothing step-son, but loved by his grown daughter--a reoccuring theme in many of his movies. All he wants to do is take the afternoon off to go to the wrestling match, and being a loyal employee who does not want to offend his boss, thinks of an excuse to leave for the day. From here his day goes downhill. Does he ever see the match? Try to turn on the television and see this film, if it ever shows up on the major film "networks". Or, just pray for Universal to release this film on video. It's a great Fields film. Don't miss it if you can!

Despite his marvelous comic con-men, who always outwits the rubes and dolts about him, there is a side of W.C. Fields that few people ever notice: he is usually a hopeless, henpecked husband when he is married. His Ambrose Wolfinger (in MAN ON THE FLYING TRAPEZE) is probably the most helpless married man that he ever portrayed.

Ambrose has actually been married (presumably more happily) to a previous wife, who has died. But they had a little girl (now grown up) named Hope (Mary Bryan) who is his one total ally in the family. His second wife, Leona Wolfinger, née Nesselrode (Kathleen Howard) is strict and shrewish with him. And his mother in law and brother in law Claude (Grady Sutton, playing a totally disreputable liar, trouble-maker, leech, and thief for a change) make his hell total.

In this film Fields is controlled by events and people - he rarely shows any of the spunk and cleverness that his Great McGonigal or Egbert Souse or Larson E. Whipsnade show. He tries to get two burglars charged in court, but they were drinking apple jack that he had allowed to ferment, so the idiot crabby judge ignores the burglary and charges Fields with violating the prohibition laws! He tries to see a wrestling match, but is delayed by traffic problems, a tire that runs away from him, a set of traffic cops, and arrives too late to see the match, only to be knocked down by one of the wrestlers being thrown on him. To make the situation even more absurd, he did not realize this ticket was stolen by Claude, who seeing him lying on the ground sneers at him as "Drunk again!"

He is also harried by his boss (Lucien Littlefield) at work, and he has to lie to get a miserable afternoon off to see the match (he says his mother-in-law died). When the truth comes out, Littlefield (on his own - as he subsequently regrets) fires him.

This is how it goes throughout the film. Except for Mary Bryan and for his secretary (Carlotta Monti, who has a nice moment at Littlefield's expense), all of the characters use and abuse Fields. He is only finally aroused when Claude tries to slap Hope, and Fields defends her, knocking out Claude. But even after that he still seems lost regarding what to do to pick up his life.

The film is funny - witness the business about Field's filing system at the office (he's a memory expert). When the actual head of the firm (Littlefield's boss - Oscar Apfel) tries to find things without Fields around, he goes nuts with the system. Littlefield tries to defend his action, only to be told by Monti that he has libeled her by suggesting Fields and she were out together at the match. Littlefield is then informed that if he can't get Fields back he'd better start looking for a new job (in the depression).

Howard's role is curious. Like her performance in IT'S A GIFT, she is extremely strict and suspicious. At one point, when Fields is getting ready to go down and check for burglars, she is begging for him to hurry and not to forget his gun. He takes the gun out, and accidentally fires it. High strung by the situation, the shooting scares Howard into a faint - Fields looks at her and with a slight trace of hope in his voice he asks, "Are you dead?" Yet, he did marry her, and at the end, when stuck alone with her mother and brother (who won't look for work), she seems to realize that - for better or worse - Ambrose was a good provider. In the end she is reunited with him and with her step-daughter.

It is a good comedy, and if it lacks the polish of THE BANK DICK and IT'S A GIFT and THE OLD FASHIONED WAY it is still worth watching.

Something's amiss if I'm posting the first and only comment on this important Fields comedy, and I think I know what it is: none of his mid-30s Paramount triumphs are available for viewing! Videotapes of Fields films ca. 1932-6 are seemingly nonexistent, and they're never on television (cah-mon, Turner Classic Movies, look alive here!) End result: many thousands of younger viewers -some of 'em already fans of 30s movies- are being cheated of their comedy birthright. (Of course, his later and equally-funny Universal jobs are readily available - witness the ever-spiraling reputation of THE BANK DICK, for starters.) And you can sing THE BANK DICK's praises morning, noon and night and get nothing but 'amens' from me, but a case can be made for mid-30s Fields-at-Paramount as his best and most fertile period, and TRAPEZE -which came at the end of that run- embodies every virtue inherent in the Great Man's work. When a Fields movie fires on all cylinders, it should almost seem a throwaway: meandering plot, disconnected bits of old vaudeville, sitcom surrealism and Falstaffian braggadocio loosely strung together with a nonchalant mean streak adding the sting in the tail. (Certainly, every fan of FAWLTY TOWERS needs to see this one!) Here, he plays Ambrose Wolfinger, a man as put-upon and abused in his fruitless search for middle-class contentment as BRINGING UP FATHER's Jiggs (complete with his very own harridan Maggie, played here by Kathleen Howard, whose baleful countenance could've cowed Groucho into meek silence!) The plot revolves around Fields' doomed attempts to sneak away from work to see his favorite wrestler, the aforementioned Mr. Mishabob, with neither his boss nor his wife ever being the wiser. That's it; that's the plot, thin enough to be rejected for an episode of LIFE OF RILEY. And as usual with Fields, this ludicrously threadbare conflict is the essence of his art, as we watch this browbeaten fellow struggle to maintain a sense of decorum as everyone and everything in his universe conspires to crush, defeat and deny him this one simple desire, with hilarious results. (Well, I told you about that mean streak, right?) The beauty of Fields and TRAPEZE is that, though he's essentially a small, petty, unlikable prig, everyone AROUND him is a thousand times worse - so horrid and poisonous that he becomes sympathetic and even heroic by comparison (with the exception of the one pearl of sentiment he allowed himself, the loving and understanding daughter who defends him by allowing him to think she needs HIS protection). There aren't very many comedies that deliver such richness of pleasure from such skeletal premises: in fact, most of them were made by Fields. Will someone please revive this gem before the last print falls to dust?

This was one of W.C. Fields' favorite films, and in fact was closest to his own family situation, or at least his version of it. It also reprises many of his skits worked out with the writer J.P. McEvoy, which he also replays in It's A Gift and other W.C. Fields' movies of the domestic type, like The Bank Dick.

I love this movie; it contains much of the actual W.C. Fields. The son, Claude, for example. W.C. Fields' and Hattie Fields, his wife, were estranged while their son, William Claude, Jr., grew up. Fields believed, according to biographers, including his grandson, that his wife turned his son against him. He always believed that if he'd had a daughter, she would be a more loyal child. In this movie, the son, Claude, is awful to him, while the daughter, Hope (!), is loyal and loving.

The gags fly: "How can you hurt a person by throwing him on his head?" "It must be hard to lose your mother-in-law." "Yes, it is, almost impossib-, um, yes." Or my favorite exchange, the most brilliantly poignant comment on an unhappy marriage, I think, ever portrayed in a movie. "Is your toast warm, Dad?" "No, dear, it's cold. But it's all right. I've been eating cold toast now for eight years; I like it." All the while looking as miserable as anyone ever could. God, he was brilliant.

There's also the sense that Ambrose, the character The Great Silly plays, is someone lost in a world that he doesn't understand. The scene where instead of the burglars, HE is the one sent to jail. Or the scene where he's parked in a no parking zone, and the painful exchanges with the cop, the chauffeur, etc. Or when he loses the car's wheel and chases it down the hill, over the dale, down the railroad tracks, barely escaping death twice.

His actual mistress (W.C. and Hattie, Catholics, never divorced), Carlotta Monti, plays his secretary, and is the one who explains that her mother is good friends with Hookalakah Meshobbab, somehow without howling with laughter.

Ah, what a film, and it's a disgrace that it's not on DVD yet.

Ambrose Wolfinger, memory expert & severely henpecked husband, sometimes feels like he's going to lose his grasp on life and fall into very deep trouble - kind of like that old MAN ON THE FLYING TRAPEZE.

W.C. Fields was at a lofty point in his career when he appeared in this hilarious little comedy. The second highest paid star at Paramount - only Mae West received more - he had just returned from MGM where he was featured as Wilkins Micawber in the all-star version of DAVID COPPERFIELD. Ill health would soon begin to stalk him again as a result of his dipsomania, but here he was wonderfully whimsical, whether dealing with spiteful in-laws, bullying traffic cops or bungling burglars in the cellar. With a handful of performances like this, Fields was to take permanent possession of a unique place in American film history.

Playing the two she-dragons Fields must face & fight are Kathleen Howard as his wife, and elderly Vera Lewis as her mother. Both excellent actresses, their scenes are waspish & wickedly funny and it is easy to see how together they could drive a normal male to distraction. It is unfortunate that these two skilled ladies are now nearly forgotten.

Grady Sutton is well cast as Fields' indolent, pouting brother-in-law; his comeuppance is richly deserved. That's Walter Brennan & Tammany Young as the crooning crooks who find themselves far from the banks of the Wabash.

It is interesting to note that the two women in the film who vigorously defend Fields also had close relationships with him outside the Studio. Mary Brian, as his daughter, was a longtime friend & neighbor of Fields. They had appeared together in the silent version of the story - RUNNING WILD - and Fields insisted on her inclusion in the talkie remake. Carlotta Monti, as Fields' faithful secretary, was also his longtime mistress. A part of his life for many years, she was at his side when he died on Christmas Day, 1946.

Burglars singing in the cellar scene is hysterical. "What are they singing?" Fields asked his distraught wife. The breakfast scene where his wife reads poetry while Fields finds nothing to eat. "And best of all," she declares, "it has no punctuation." Fields in jail with a killer. "I had three wives, and this is the first one I've ever killed." "That's very much in your favor," notes Fields. This film is wonderful. It is a shame it's not available on video.

This W.C. Fields vehicle is more disciplined than NEVER GIVE A SUCKER AN EVEN BREAK (1941) but it's still, basically, a series of extended sketches (though, thankfully, there's no intrusive romantic subplot or musical interludes). Typically, the title has no meaning specific to the film to which it's attached and characters are given deliberately strange names (once again, Fields supplied the story himself under the alias Charles Bogle)! Also, as often happened with comics (notably Laurel & Hardy), plot lines of vehicles from the Silent days were reprised during the Talkie period - this particular film being a reworking of Fields' RUNNING WILD (1927).

The star is here a henpecked husband (at his best when lethargically responding to his wife's agitated statement that their cellar has been broken into), a role he often played - such as in IT'S A GIFT (1934) and THE BANK DICK (1940) from the first Universal set - with a devoted daughter from a previous marriage who are resented by their new family (including Fields regulars Kathleen Howard and Grady Sutton). However, he's retained by the business firm he works for due to his remarkable memory (the film, in fact, was released in the U.K. as THE MEMORY EXPERT).

The very first shot - an empty but unmade bed - is a classic, as one already knows that Fields is somewhere in the house drinking behind his wife's back. Perhaps my favorite gag involves Fields' painful scream, which happens twice during the course of the film - first, when he falls down the stairs of his own cellar and ends up sitting on a piece of wood with a nail sticking out of it and, again later, when he brags about his wrestling prowess but is promptly thrown over his opponent's shoulder when put to the test! There are, however, several other memorable sequences: the opening applejack incident in which two burglars (one of whom is Walter Brennan) get drunk on Fields' liquor, burst out into a sentimental song, and are eventually joined by a cop and the star himself (when they appear before a magistrate, it's Fields who gets thrown in jail for not possessing a license to make his own beverage!); the dinner-table scene where he drowns his wife's talking by noisily munching on a piece of toast; Fields' unique system of filing at his office; his receiving several parking-tickets in a row; the star chasing after the tyre of his car which came loose and almost getting crushed by a speeding train in the process; the all-important wrestling match (to which he sneaks off from work after lying to his boss that his mother-in-law had died - because of this, his house is soon flooded with bouquets of flowers sent in sympathy by his colleagues!) which he misses due to the mishaps described above...although, he does arrive in time to be hit with the flying body of one of the fighters!

Like most Fields comedies, the film is consistently funny - with the only flaw being the occasional sag in pacing. Curiously enough, I unintentionally watched the only two Fields vehicles in which his mistress Carlotta Monti appears in quick succession! Incidentally, MAN ON THE FLYING TRAPEZE proved to be the last film to be credited to Silent comedy expert Clyde Bruckman; actually, his chronic alcoholism meant that he wasn't fit to perform his duties during much of the shooting - and, for the first and only time in his career, Fields eventually took over the directorial reins himself!

I agree with Fowler of Metarie. This is one of W. C. Fields classic masterpieces. It is certainly on a par with the available later films such as "The Bank Dick" and "Its a Gift". It is a shame that this film isn't available on commercial video.

The scene where W. C.'s character in sent, unwillingly, to investigate the, "burglars singing in the cellar", is one of the funniest on film. He encounters the burglars, including a young Walter Brennan with hair, in the cellar with his friends stealing W. C.'s illegal cider and singing. W. C. admires the singing and enters into the festivities. This scene, from the point where he is browbeaten into going down to check the cellar, to the point point where he is arrested by the investigating cops for making cider without a license, is comparable to anything on film, including the famous "and-a two hard boiled eggs," scene from the Marx Brothers, "Night at the Opera", or Fields own back porch scene from "Its a Gift".

I remember seeing this film broadcast about twenty years ago. I have looked to no avail for it to be rebroadcast ever since. This is such a good movie it really needs to be available.

Man on the Flying Trapeze (1935) : Brief Review -

One of WC Fields' Best Performances ever as he plays an underestimated gentleman without any traditional tantrums. Clyde Bruckman's comedy is fun because of WC Fields, but it's also got a good story. Even if there is less comedy, comedies with good stories become better watch materials because you get additional entertainment. On the Flying Trapeze has WC Fields playing a henpecked and helpless husband. While trying to take his first day off from work in 25 years to attend a wrestling match, he experiences a series of misadventures. Throughout the viewing, I was thinking about how he would triumph at the end. I mean, that's what our protagonist does in comedy films, right? I kept waiting, and the conclusion came as quite a pleasant surprise. The film wasn't as funny as I expected, but I am happy with the good script. It has that goodwill factor working as a boost, and I always admire such positive things in films. However, a little more comedy would have been better anyway. WC Fields gave one of his best performances ever in this film. He remains an underdog and an underestimated fella in the film, but emerges victorious at the end, even as an actor. The film has some of his trademark scenes. That 'drat' is there in the beginning. The dumb-looking introduction is there. That car parking scene was the best of them all, followed by the misadventures around the wrestling match. Kathleen Howard plays a bittersweet role. You hate her for the cruelty, but then she reveals the good side of herself at the end. Mary Brian is cute and beautiful, while Grady Sutton and Vera Lewis are utterly brutal according to the requirements of their characters. WC Fields and Sam Hardy were uncredited directors, so let's just thank Clyde Bruckman for the fun ride. His direction is fairly good, but yes, it could have been better.

RATING - 6.5/10*

By - #samthebestest.

Tedg from Virginia Beach noted the socks scene, and I completely agree. However one important thing he may have overlooked or forgot to mention. First of all my copy comes from late night Boston TV in the 70's, how much it is cut I don't know but like the rest of you I cant wait for a good DVD copy. I also agree with fowler and others that other than the bank dick this is his finest movie, I still laugh myself silly every time I watch it. Especially the jail scene (I take the scissors). My wife and kids are sick of it and I can only find "newbies" to watch it with, but I love ALL fields. Anyway about the socks, he goes to put his socks back on to go downstairs and she is standing over him nagging at him, he puts a sock on one foot and she is making him so "nervous" that he mistakingly puts the other sock on the same foot, puts one slipper on the socked foot and when he goes to put the other slipper on he realizes he has no sock on that foot. Now he starts looking around the floor and on the bed, shes still nagging and says " What are you doing now!!" he say's I cant find my sock and on it goes. Nobody is or was as funny as WC not even the little tramp by a long shot.

This is not the Great Man's best work. Part of the issue may be the style of comedy in the day, but the various situations are dragged out much too long. It had me checking the time in the middle of the film. However there is a lot to like here, if you have the patience for it.

I consider this title, along with "It's A Gift", to be the best work of W.C. Fields entire career. He isn't a carnival huckster or a flim-flam man here...no top hat and double breasted suit. He's just a lower middle-class husband dealing with a lazy brother-in-law, shrewish wife and meddlesome mother-in-law. He's a classic case of what we would call today "passive-aggressive", a brow-beaten man who appears to have given up on asserting himself with his family, deferring to everyone around him, but still managing to do what he wants. I only wish he and Kathleen Howard(playing his wife) had done more than two movies together. They play off of each other wonderfully. So many hilarious set-pieces, but the breakfast table scene, with that "delightful verse by Gertrude Smotten," still ranks as my favorite.

Without a doubt a comedy classic. The last and only time I saw it was over twenty years ago and the laughs still stay with me. Does anyone know of any way to get this movie on video? Will it ever be available? What's the reason for the holdup???

UPDATE: May 2007 -- Great news -- this gem is now available on DVD. It is as funny now as when I saw it decades ago. I don't remember it being so short -- it is only 65 minutes -- but those are hilarious minutes. WC Fields is a genius! The entire cast is perfect. The interaction with his family is just terrific. I especially like the scenes with Fields and the woman playing his daughter -- they were very touching. This is a MUST SEE film!

This is my favorite W.C. Fields movie, and that is not meant to diminish any of his others. But this one really hits the spot, for me.

This is one of Fields' "the worm turns" movies, where the put-upon, harried head of household finally becomes a hero and gains the respect and admiration of his family.

It has multitudes of little comic touches along the way -- like Fields first calling the neighborhood patrol to kick out the "burglars singing in the cellar," then getting into a drinking and singing session with them. It has droll touches like Fields growling, "Get your filthy hands off!" as the crook turns the applejack tap for him.

Fields is VERY put-upon in this movie. His wife nags and berates him unmercifully. His hatchet-faced mother-in-law is one of the most hateable examples of the type I've seen. You should see the looks she gives Fields and his daughter at the breakfast table (where she's stuffing her son with every cooked morsel, while Fields manages to get a couple of pieces of cold toast, and his daughter has to struggle to get the sugar bowl). That Medusa could turn people to stone with her hatchet-faced, baleful stare.

The son-in-law is also very hateable -- spoiled, lazy, ungrateful, loafing on the couch, disdainful of Fields and laughing at him when he gets thrown in jail for making applejack. It's really satisfying when this lout gets his comeuppance! (He's played by Grady Sutton, who's always fun to watch, even when cast as a no-goodnik as he is here.) The officious brown-noser at Fields' place of employment, who gets Fields fired for skipping work to see the wrestling match with Hookalakah Meshobbab (Cockalocka Mishabobb?), is also somewhat hateable, and it's nice to see him put in his place.

But the scene where "the worm turns," where Fields finally decks his son-in-law and takes a roundhouse swing at the old battleaxe, is priceless. Very satisfying! Mary Brian is lovely and endearing as the loving daughter, and Carlotta Monti is brave, loyal and quite fiery, when she defends Fields' behavior at the wrestling match: "What did you expect me to do -- stand there like a dummy while my boss was dying in the gutter?" (Or words to that effect.)

A good time will be had by all who watch this movie. It's satisfying and droll, and as I said, it's my Favorite Fields Film.

I feel that Fields works best here when he's engaged in the comedy de la domestic, specifically during the movie's opening 15 minutes where's caught between "burglars singing in the cellar" and his incessantly nagging wife played by a very convincing Kathleen Howard howling in the bedroom. Fantastic, hilarious stuff. The remainder of the film is more hit and miss. There are two collisions, one with a bicycle and the other with a large man. The misses are his secretary played by Fields' real-life mistress Carlotta Monti, and his daughter played by the ever alluring and sweet Mary Brian. But enough about that, who's for some applejack?

"It's a Gift" never touched me ... WC and the direction both too frantic, nothing sticks in my memory as hilarious besides Mr. Muckle and "I don't want to lug the gum home, "Send It!!" ... WC was too much of a heavyweight to take on Baby Leroy so it's hard to enjoy those scenes ... Bill was better as victim than as persecutor.

"The Bank Dick" I wince at, it tries too hard (its too-cute incidental music behind WC's antics, the Franklin Pangborns and Shemp Howards to liven it up etc.) and sorry to say a WC puffed-up and inexpressive, senility-by-way-of-the-bottle having crept in. By this point I think he was spending half the time in a sanitarium. "The Bank Dick" isn't the best of Bill, folks.

Bill's real genius as shown in this movie was his subtlety in patiently weathering every misfortune, and they all befall him. Oliver Hardy would have soon gone ballistic, Edgar Kennedy would have done the "slow-burn," but WC, with just an apolgetic mumble, is more interesting than either as we watch his good-nature tested. The ensemble is great: Oscar Apfel as his boss is this strange cartoon boss, Kathleen Howard as WC's wife has a presence here that is unforgettable, the memorable Michael Viseroff as cellmate for Bill (... "yes, that's in your favor (!)...") ... It's as if the odd ways of WC rubbed off on the rest of the cast, a possibility since he basically directed the film. It's slow-drip torture for WC all the way, How much will he take? ... One of those films with nothing wasted; like me you might find you remember practically every line in every scene. Perfect. Well, maybe the ending is a little trite.

I taped this from the late show in 1982. You mean there was a maternity ward scene cut out? I can't wait to see this and any other missing stuff from this gem of a film. Eleven stars.

THE MAN ON THE FLYING TRAPEZE (Paramount, 1935), directed by Norman McLeod, with comic supplements by Charles Bogle (alias W.C. Fields) is not a circus story as the title implies, but a domestic comedy featuring Fields as Ambrose Wolfinger, a henpecked husband with a shrewish second wife, Leona (Kathleen Howard); Hope, a sympathetic daughter (Mary Brian) from his first marriage; Cordelia Neselrode, a chicken-faced mother-in-law (Vera Lewis); and Claude, a shiftless brother-in-law (Grady Sutton) who loafs around the house all day. Resembling that of a 20 minute comedy short, which only runs 65 minutes, the movie gets right down to business without plot development.

Fade in focuses on Ambrose and Leona getting ready for bed. Down in his cellar are a couple of burglars (Walter Brennan and Tammany Young) discovering a keg of applejack, getting drunk and start singing "On the Banks of the Wabash." Ambrose is ordered by his wife to go downstairs, but instead of chasing them away with his gun, he joins them in a keg and sings along with them. After a policeman arrives to investigate, he takes the drunken burglars with him and has Ambrose come along with the cider as evidence to press charges. Because Ambrose is owner of the illegal liquor, the night court judge (Arthur Aylesworth) has him arrested instead, placing Ambrose in a cell for the night with a homicidal maniac. After being bailed out by his daughter, Ambrose returns home to bed so he can finally get some sleep, only to moments hear the alarm clock ring. "Quite a snooze," he quibbles. The following morning, Ambrose intends on taking his first day off in 25 years from the office so he can attend the wrestling matches. His ticket, unfortunately, has been swiped by Claude, who makes plans to attend himself. But that doesn't stop Ambrose. He tells his employer (Oscar Apfel) he needs the day off to attend his mother-in-law's "funeral." Driving off to the stadium to see Kulabosh Mishabobb wrestling Tosoff, Ambrose meets with complications and more complications which keeps him from attending, including him getting numerous parking citations, his involvement with an ambulance driver, a flat tire followed by his spare that rolls down a hill and onto railroad tracks as Ambrose chases after it with a train approaching. (The tire has a mind of its own when it jumps from one track onto another, nearly missing the train). As Ambrose gets on line to purchase his ticket, (the last one is sold as he gets to the box office window to face a SOLD OUT sign), a wrestler throws his opponent out of the ring, into the street and on top of Ambrose. Claude sees this and believes Ambrose to be drunk and asleep in the gutter. But that's not all! After he returns home somewhat battered, Ambrose walks in to find angry faces surrounded by reefs and flowers reading REST IN PEACE, and a newspaper story about Mrs. Neselrode's passing. More complications ensue when it is learned that Ambrose has also lost his job, which is followed by Ambrose finally losing his temper with the old nags, and socking Claude after threatening to slap Hope for stepping in on her father's behalf. Before Ambrose leaves the premises with Hope, he places REST IN PEACE reef on the unconscious Claude. I won't reveal how the story ends but I will say not to miss the final fade-out, which shows Ambrose gets his last laugh.

Fields is the center of attention, supplying his usual full quota of laughs. Fields and Kathleen Howard make such a classic pair that it seems a pity that this was to become their final collaboration together. She previously played a similar nasty wife to Fields in IT'S A GIFT (1934), and as a snobbish society woman in YOU'RE TELLING ME (1934), both films readily available on video cassette. Also in the cast are Lucien Littlefield as Mr. Peabody; and Carlotta Monti as Ambrose's loyal secretary. She's the one who authored the book, "W.C. Fields and Me."

THE MAN ON THE FLYING TRAPEZE may not be a top-notch Fields comedy because of several poignant scenes that are at times hard to sit through, this comedy of frustration does, however, provide many moments of hilarity. Out of circulation on the commercial TV markets since the mid-1980s, TRAPEZE, along with other Fields/Paramount collaborations of the 30s, were brought back again, temporarily, at least, on Turner Classic Movies cable channel (TCM premiere: May 9, 2001). (**1/2)

The film career of W.C Fields was certainly a bit of a strange one. The overall quality of his films is somewhat uneven as some of the stories appear contrived and drawn out. "The Man On the Flying Trapeze" is an example of this. The opening scene where Fields is being nagged by his shrewish wife in dealing with those drunken burglars is longwinded and seems to last forever. The writing on the whole, is OK without being great. Fields's character is a sympathetic one though, given that he is lumbered with his wife, her mother and his lazy stepson. The latter proves to be a rather bigoted and hostile character by accusing Fields of being drunk in public at a wrestling match with his secretary. The bits about drunken behaviour with the secretary is all false but the stepson won't back down and turns aggressive. Fields manages to assert himself and you cheer him when he does! I didn't reckon there were many laughs here and the 63 minute running time seemed an eternity. To be fair, W.C Fields made better films than the above.

Comedy is funny. I mean that it is odd in addition to being amusing. You can laugh and also wonder about why and maybe even laugh at that.

Film comedy is different than other comedy, say written comedy.

My own notions of film are that everything essential was worked out in the thirties when competing concepts elbowed each other and we ended up with the rough cinematic vocabulary we have now. Nowhere is this more true than with straight humor.

Since that time, we've developed a complex notion of the humors of irony, but what I'm talking about here is people directly depicting funny stuff.

So when you go back, you find a few innovators, something like the few jazz inventors of the 50s. What they did is pure by retrospective definition. Going back helps you discover yourself: are you a Keaton man? Chaplin, Arbuckle, Marx, Laurel?

W C Fields is one that you should experience. I liked his "Sucker" movie the best because it was his last and most mature; and the story dealt with him as Fields and the studios telling him he wasn't funny.

Here is his best early film where he does his thing. It is in the vaudeville tradition of being a bunch of loosely connected skits. But it is highly cinematic humor, just not the sight gags you see with the others. It depends all on timing.

The first sequence is the best. Our man is preparing for bed. He sneaks drinks while his witchy wife complains (in a separate bed, as this is post-code). The key joke here is him taking his socks off.

If you haven't seen it, I know this sounds odd, but Fields taking his socks off is hilarious. It takes forever. Then they hear intruders below and he puts his socks back on, taking almost as long. It is a truly precious lesson in investing in laughter. It isn't explosive. It isn't particularly subtle or clever. It is just reality bent in a complex rubato that we have to take the time to relish.

Terrific. I watched that one scene several times.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.