The
Fatal Glass of Beer
This classic 21 minute silent style film but with
early sound is available on several bargain price W.C.Fields compilations.
It's a Mack Sennett comedy played with the usual dry W.C.Fields delivery.
The son of prospector Pa Snaveley has gone to the
big city and fallen in with a bad lot, so that he slips into a life of
crime:
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They tempted him to drink |
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and they said he was a coward: |
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At last he took the fatal glass of beer… |
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He'd found what he'd done |
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he dashed the glass down on the floor, |
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and he staggered through the door |
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with delirium tree-mens. |
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Once upon the sidewalk |
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He met a Salvation Army girl |
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and wickedly he broke |
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her tambourine |
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Oh she said "Heaven bless you" |
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And placed a mark upon his brow, |
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with a kick she'd learned |
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before she had been saved. |
The running gags will have you in stitches and
you'll be chiming in with the punch-lines. The wobbly and absurd
back-projection is a hoot, too. Listen out for the line "Tastes like
cornflakes" about the fake snow! Prodigal son Chester is played by
George Chandler and Rosemary Theby is Ma Snaveley. It pre-dates Morecambe
and Wise and Monty Python by several decades. If you've thought just of
the oft-cited mysogynistic pronouncements of W.C., watch this and marvel
at his comic genius.
©RKW from the Summer 2006 edition of O-to-K