Film homage W.C. Fields The Man on the Flying Trapeze 1935 Carnival Casa Grande Arizona 2005
by David Lee Guss
Title
Film homage W.C. Fields The Man on the Flying Trapeze 1935 Carnival Casa Grande Arizona 2005
Artist
David Lee Guss
Medium
Photograph - Photography
Description
"Man on the Flying Trapeze" (1935) is just one of the many classics W.C. Fields (1880-1946) made for Paramount in the 1930's; but along with "It's a Gift" a work of greatness.
The hapless Grady Sutton plays a sponging relative, with the "heart of a lion."
(He appeared in two films I photographed "Dirty Dingus Magee" and "Suppose They Gave a War.")
Even a reed thin Walter Brennan shows up as a burglar singing a duet with Fields. Two burglars are in W. C.'s cellar, generously sampling his home brew apple jack and singing.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEDwmExd3Hk&feature=related
Fields provided the story (as Charles Bogle) and partly directed without credit. By 1935 the ex juggler and vaudevillian had been in show business over 40 years.
"Pool Sharks" (1916), where he recreated his classic pool playing routine, was his first film. His first feature was 1923's, "Sally of the Sawdust," directed by D.W. Griffith. "Sally" was based on Fields stage production of "Poppy."
Like Laurel and Hardy, Fields easily made the transition from silent films to talkies. His distinctive, raspy voice and muttered throw away asides needed sound.
Sound is crucial to the night porch sleeping scene in "It's a Gift;" with no attempt to mask the deep shadowed blazing sun of Los Angeles.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=41SFTn9xHus&feature=related
Field's long suffering mistress (living with him 14 years), Carlotta Monti, has a line or two as the great man's secretary. She began in films as an uncredited slave girl in the silent "Ben-Hur" (1925); also as an uncredited theater goer in the original "King Kong" (1933).
Monti wrote "W.C. Fields & Me," which recounts her never dull life with Fields. She is played by Valerie Perrine in the 1976 film. Rod Steiger impersonates W.C. The final scene recreates the filming of 1935's "Poppy."
www.youtube.com/watch?v=KETU9AWPXhM
William Claude Dukenfield (who ran away from home at 11 fleeing from an alcoholic, physically abusive father) died on Christmas 1946 at 67. Carlotta outlived him by 47 years, dying at 84 at the motion picture retirement home in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles.
Uploaded
June 6th, 2013
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