Never Give a Sucker an Even Break

Edward F. Cline, 1941, bw (8.1*)
This film defines the word zany, perhaps the funniest W.C. Fields film, certainly the craziest. Fields tries to sell a completely preposterous script to a Hollywood film mogul, and we get to witness all the crazy action he describes. In one scene he falls from an airplane onto the poolside divan at a mountaintop castle-like retreat of a reclusive wealthy widow, Mrs. Hemogloben (Margaret Dumont) and her daughter (Gloria Jean), without injury of course. We also get to see one of the great car chase sequences ever imagined, with police and a fire truck also involved. Even those who aren't fans of Fields slow, painstaking delivery should enjoy this romp. They never made comedies any more 'screwball' than this one. Fields co-wrote the screenplay as well, which the censors at the time found to be a bit too risque with some well-worded innuendos.