Review of The Bank Dick (1940) by Al M — 15 Sep 2010

Hysterical entertainment from one of Hollywood's greatest sound cinema clowns. Fields has no issue taking his comedy from short skits to feature length, and here he develops some of his best subjects into plot devices: his impatience with children, his love of alcohol and his famous tampering of the English language.

Though it's under the guise of a big studio name, the film is fully under Fields' control, and he finds a number of clever ways to ambiguously make the film very risqué. Though he plays dumb in his films, W.

C. Fields is one of the most slyly intelligent comedians to ever pioneer the silver screen.