Wonderful character development!

Purely Joyful Movie!

Good start, but then it gets ruined

n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

W.C. Fields may not be as well-known today as his peers Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton but he was an original American comedic icon and genius. In this film, he plays an aspiring screenwriter with a crazy idea for a film. The screenplay is far more imaginative and zany than anything I've ever seen on film. Anyway, there is the car chase when he takes a woman to the maternity hospital in Hollywood. This film is worth watching just to see Hollywood in 1941. It's totally different than today and that's what makes it's incredible to watch is how the city has changed over 7 decades. Anyway, the car chase is one of the best I've ever seen. Even though it's crazy to watch and you can't help laughing. You know it would never happen today but the car chase at the end is just worth watching especially in 1941. Anyway, this was his last film according to his film biography and it's a shame. W.C. Fields was a genius comedian, juggler, performer, whether on stage, radio or in film. He is still missed. There will never be another like him again.

Never Give a Sucker an Even Break (1941) ** 1/2 (out of 4) W.C. Fields plays himself, The Great Man, trying to sell a screenplay to a studio but they don't seem to be too impressed with it. We then see several short parts of this screenplay acted out with Gloria Jean playing his niece and Leon Errol as the rival. I know this film has the reputation of being one of the greatest comedies out there but it really left me disappointed. The film certainly moves at a nice pace and it has a lot going for it but in the end I found it to be more charming than anything else and I think it failed in terms of getting any real laughs. There was a joke in the movie where the studio guy tells Fields that his screenplay just isn't good enough and he sure wasn't lying. There's a long running joke on an airplane, which Fields jumps out of and lands in a place with a beautiful female virgin who has never seen a man before. Fields of course gets her to play a game but none of this was ever funny. The reaction of the ugly mother is funny but this comes at the very end of the sequence. A lot of Fields films appeared to have been patchy as they would feature one comic bit and then the next and so on but this film here seems stitched together and not in a good way. The movie has some funny moments but for the most part I found myself not laugh a bit. The highlight of the film is the famous chase sequence at the end, which Abbott and Costello would pretty much steal for their film IN SOCIETY. This chase sequence is full of great action and some nice stunts so it's worth watching the movie just to get to this.

There are still moments of greatness in "Never Give A Sucker An Even Break", but, by this time, they are few and far between. Fields is great in an early sequence arguing with a fat diner waitress, and his jumping out the airplane window is priceless. But I think even Fields must have known he'd had it by this point, and the most telling sign is the inclusion (at Fields' insistence) of the dreadful Gloria Jean. When heavy hitters like Fields insist on being portrayed on-screen as 'lovable', the game's over. If I never hear her insipid Bavarian yodeling again, it'll be too soon. Some people will love the utter insanity of the movie script that Fields tries to pitch to Hollywood hotshot Franklin Pangborn; I thought it dragged on a bit. A sometimes funny, but kind of sad epitaph to one of the world's greatest comedians. R.I.P. Uncle Bill!

I watched this one first from the second of Universal's W.C. Fields Box Set because of its almost legendary status for being "completely insane", as Leonard Maltin so aptly puts it; incidentally, the film also turned out to be The Great Man's last starring vehicle (based on his own story, credited to Otis Criblecoblis). It's amazing how Fields' essentially unlikable personality has endured over the years: he's the only actor who has made a career out of constantly dwelling on his vices, i.e. the "golden nectar", and pet hates (especially children). Besides, his comic style is so personal as to be incoherent at times - but that's part of his genius: who else could come up with such a bizarre line as "How'd you like to hide the egg and gurgitate a few saucers of mocha java?" and make it sound so utterly hilarious through his unique delivery? While self-references such as abound in this film weren't uncommon in the old Hollywood, not to mention its anything-goes attitude revolving around a wisp of plot - think Universal's own HELLZAPOPPIN' (1942), for instance, with Olsen & Johnson - Fields was the only one among the great comedians who was willing to experiment in this way; in fact, some of the cast members (including the star) play themselves and, at one point, Fields is even seen admiring the poster of his latest success THE BANK DICK (1940) while two boys exclaim to one another what a bummer it was! The end result is perhaps patchy overall but often uproarious nonetheless: there are too many pauses for song - though Gloria Jean herself is pretty and charming, and the jive rendition of "Comin Thru' The Rye" by a girl who has been sheltered from the world all her life is an inspired touch. Among Fields' comic foils in the film are Franklin Pangborn (as a flustered studio head), Marx Bros. regular Margaret Dumont (playing the grande dame even in her mountaintop retreat) and Leon Errol (as Fields' rival for the hand of wealthy man-hating Dumont). Incidentally, the receptionist in Pangborn's office is played by Carlotta Monti - Fields' then-companion.The film's best scenes and gags include: the diner sequence with Fields exchanging insults with a heavy-set waitress; the disruption of Gloria's rehearsal of a musical number, over which Pangborn presides, by the set construction crew; Pangborn reading Fields' surreal script (in which, among other things, he dives off an aeroplane - whose interior and rear deck resemble those of a train's - after the gin bottle he accidentally drops, and again from a parapet when Dumont suggests that they kiss!); Dumont's fanged mastiff (an equally fake-looking gorilla also turns up here); and, of course, the classic and brilliantly-sustained chase finale (which was later lifted for the Abbott & Costello vehicle IN SOCIETY [1944]). The dialogue is equally great - including one of the star's best-remembered lines: "I was in love with a beautiful blonde once: she drove me to drink - that's the one thing I'm indebted to her for"; he even throws in a dig at the censor, when a scene that was supposed to take place in a bar had to be reset to a soda fountain! P.S. At the end, Gloria leaves with Fields and he tells her that he had promised her mother he would take care of the girl; the mother, a trapeze artist, appears at the beginning of the film but her death scene (to which this brief exchange refers) was subsequently deleted.By the way, I'm again baffled by the fact that I've yet to come across any online review for this wonderful set; also, I'm personally not bothered by the Collection's relatively high price-point - considering that we're getting, at least, 4 comedic gems (besides, by having only one film per disc, we don't risk the freezing issues which plagued Universal's Abbott & Costello Franchise releases and which have so far kept me from purchasing them).