You won't be disappointed!

Redundant and unnecessary.

It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

This was a fairly enjoyable W. C. Fields film. While the plot, such as it is, meanders aimlessly, that wasn't really the point of films like this in those days. Back then, famous comedians played their persona, with plotting as a distant afterthought. The same holds largely true of Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, The Marx Brothers, etc. Previous commenter "The_Film_Cricket" hit the nail on the head about the current popularity, or lack thereof, of Fields. His dipsomania, and his misanthropy are now totally politically incorrect. Erelong, he will likely be put down the memory hole, along with Amos & Andy, and "The Song of the South". But for now, we have his good, old-fashioned comedy.

Happy to say I found this film a lot more amusing than "It's A Gift", reputed to be W.C. Fields' funniest. Made six years later than the earlier film, it's as if Fields realized that the repetitive nature of the bits in 'Gift' tended to wear the viewer out, whereas he presented each of his humorous situations here just once and moved the viewer on to the next. Yet at the same time he recycled some of the ideas from the 1934 flick, like the pronunciation of his last name (accent grave over the e, Souse/Bissonette), the irritable wife and a willingness to beat his kid to prove how much he loved him or her. I don't know if these themes were staples of his pictures because I haven't seen enough of them, so I guess I'll find out in due course.If you stay attentive to the opening credits you'll see one for Screenplay by Mahatma Kane Jeeves. Watching this film on Turner Classics and hosted by moderator Ben Mankiewicz, the origin of the name was explained by Fields' granddaughter, Dr. Harriet Fields. It was derived from one of Fields' sayings when he was getting ready to perform. He would ask for 'My hat, my cane and my shoes'. So a clever play on words, and as a word-smith, Fields sprinkles his story liberally with uncommon words like moon calf and jabbernowl. But he really caught my attention with a line that Hitchcock wound up using in his 1945 picture "Spellbound" when Ingrid Bergman says to Gregory Peck - "Professor, you're suffering from mogo on the go-go". However the phrase used here was 'mogo on the ga-go-go'.Anyway, I found the picture to be highly entertaining, and even a bit risqué at times, Fields' caricature of being a souse notwithstanding. Every time the Black Pussy Cat Café came into view I had to wonder what was on Fields' mind, other than ordering up a depth bomb to wet his whistle. Similarly I would never had considered his proboscis to be an 'adsatitious excrescious', and by that time I thought he might have been making it all up as he went.Above all, make sure you stick around for the well choreographed car chase near the end of the film. It reminded me a lot of the painstaking choreography Chaplin put into some of his pictures. The ditch diggers in particular stayed right on cue for their bit, and the near misses with the dueling road cars was epic timing at it's best. Something you take for granted today but back in the Forties I imagine it was quite the feat. With all that, one's best take away from the picture might well be the advice Egbert Souse offered his soon to be son-in-law on preparing for the future, even if it was offered in convoluted Fieldsian double talk - 'Don't wait too long in life'.

one of the most fascinating movies of W. C. Fields , it has rare gift to be more than a good comedy but an admirable work in which each detail impress and seems be perfect. it is not a surprise because W. C. Fields himself represents an entire universe. result - a fresh film, splendid for dialogs and gags, for the performance of Franklin Pangborn and for the flavor of fairy tale. a film who reminds basic values of society without be a moral lesson or only fun. part of long chain of films about the good American , it has the art to be a pure gem , using each nuance of script in wise manner. a movie from a lost period. so, a message. or only one of the greatest performances by W. C. Fields.

I probably enjoy this at least as much as any of W. C. Fields' other flicks but I think it helps a lot to be in the proper mood. As an actor, Fields was sui generis. His gags, his gestures, his characters were all his own. He was even able to inject a bit of the Philadelphia vaudevillian into his Mister Macawber. It's hardly possible to imagine his playing a straight part or sharing the screen with an equal, as Bob Hope did with Bing Crosby. There was nobody like him.Therefore, whether or not you appreciate his comedy is going to depend almost entirely on your ability to appreciate the on-screen persona of W. C. Fields.You have to be in the proper mood to appreciate his bits of business. (The stories themselves are of practically no consequence.) You must ask yourself serious questions, such as: "When the ex-juggler tried to put his hat on and sets it on top of his upraised cane instead, is that funny?" Are vile and politically incorrect habits like smoking and drinking amusing in themselves? Does it deserve a chuckle when a man's family hates him so much that they insult him in the third person when he's present? How about a man shuffling down the street of an indifferent town and muttering to himself about life's tribulations? I usually find his movies full of stretches of rough road -- a plump man with a turnip for a nose who shows a startle reaction to every unexpected sound or sight. But there are some good gags sprinkled along the dusty miles. "Allow me to offer you a firm handshake," says the bank president, barely touching Fields' fingers with his own. And Fields in the Black Pussy Cat Cafe interrupting an intense conversation to turn to the bartender with a curious squint to ask, "By the way, did I spend a twenty dollar bill here last night? I did? Whew, what a load off my mind. I thought I'd lost it." Or shepherding the dreaded bank examiner into the saloon, intending to incapacitate him before he can get to the books, and then slyly inquiring of the bar tender, "Has, er, Michael Finn been here today?" (Boys and girl, a "mickey finn" was slang for an alcoholic drink into which so-called knock-out drops had been placed, probably chloral hydrate.) If you see nothing funny in Fields passing his family at the breakfast table, swimming through a sea of humiliating derogations, and getting beaned by an object thrown by his young daughter just as he's walking out the door -- well, that's not too funny. But how about if the family continues with their aspersions for a bit more, until we cut to the still-open door and see Fields struggling to carry a potted plant the size of a garbage can inside in order to smash it over his little girls' head?