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The Marx Brothers hoped to bring the freaks back to the MGM big-top, W.C. Fields gives it a go over at Universal. Larson E. Whipsnade's Circus Giganticus, where customers who grouse about getting shortchanged end up with glued-on beards on the sideshow. Fields runs it nobly, meaning he flees from the cops, dodges a downpour of acrobats, and fills in for the sharpshooter with Annie Oakley dress and curved rifle, "it baffles science." The veiled-willy gag from Austin Powers has its provenance here when the ringmaster steps out of a makeshift shower (a jumbo's trunk douses him on command), the one about the little tyke with the squashed puppy is part of the ode to "disgusting children" ("reeking of popcorn and lollipops"). Still, the biggest foe is wood-carved smartass Charlie McCarthy, the "termites' flophouse" perched on Edgar Bergen's knee: The dummy mocks the swindler's booze-swollen snout, who responds by making good use of the alligator pit. "You must come down with me after the show to the lumberyard, and ride piggyback on the buzz saws." Somewhere in the sawdust is the tale of the devoted daughter (Constance Moore) marrying a dandy to get daddy out of debt, basically a reason for Fields to crash high society—he arrives by Roman chariot and promptly freaks out the lady of the house with wanton references to snakes. "Tartuffle? Is that good or bad?" Not as undiluted as It's a Gift or The Bank Dick, but invaluable if only for the flirtation with Jan Duggan's ping-pong nympho. With Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, John Arledge, James Bush, Thurston Hall, Mary Forbes, Arthur Hohl, Edward Brophy and Grady Sutton. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |