having a field(s) day with starlite cinema

the january edition of starlite cinema is in the books and it was sorely needed.

let me tell you a little about why starlite cinema is so important to me and why i hope everyone can find the time to come out one of these evenings. it has been a difficult beginning to this new year. still in mourning for one friend, yesterday my friends and i lost another one. i keep thinking that someday soon we are going to wake up from this collective bad dream that has been 2012 so far and everything will be set right. i know a lot of people must be feeling similarly. i busy myself with work but that's not always enough and, as it goes when you lose someone, what you love about them and the void that is causing pain and grief are inextricably bound up in one another. it's sad and difficult to see the friends you have in common but, simultaneously, all you want to do is be there for whatever they need. i am a fairly solitary person, and it feels like that is only going to become more pronounced for the forseeable near future, but, in the wake of these terrible things, the thing that has made all of us feel a little bit better is how much everyone we know is coming together and helping each other. i read an interview with tom waits some years ago in which he mused about this life being a constant war between the light and the dark and the nagging suspicion that maybe the dark has just one more spear. well, as hard as these three weeks have been on everyone, at least it has shown me that that fear is unfounded. i have watched my friends pick each other up, lock arms and stare that dark right in the eye and the numbers are on our side. tonight was a perfect example of that.

knowing that these have been trying times, lauren went out of her way to find out what my most favorite dish is and to have that surprise on the stove when i arrived to start setting up for the screening tonight. it was one of those little things that means the world. she and stephen are always so gracious to us, sharing their home for these. this is more than that, though. your friends tell you they love you in all kinds of ways, some of the most important being just doing what they can to offer you simple comforts, a modicum of relief or just a place to set everything down for a little while. i appreciate it more than i can say. it will always be the best mushroom matar i have ever had. and, in typical above-and-beyond fashion, there was also blueberry pie and ice cream. in return, i offered an evening of some of my favorite things. our feature was the w.c. fields vehicle it's a gift (1934). since that's relatively short we also had a large program of two-reelers prior to the main attraction that included more fields in the dentist (1932) and the barbershop (1933), laurel and hardy's county hospital (1932) and the little rascals in mush and milk (1933), which includes this inimitable moment from tommy bond.

dear lord, that never fails to make me cry with laughter. these are the things that happen at starlite cinema. it's about so much more than watching movies. it's about being together, sharing moments that we're going to think about, with any luck, for the rest of our lives. i am fortunate to be rich with such friends. you should come spend these evenings with us, if you can.

our next program is going to be in mid-february and we will be screening jean vigo's luminous l'atalante (1934) in honor of valentine's day. this feverish romance is a milestone of french cinema, far ahead of its time. uncommonly sensuous and poetic, it was the last film vigo made in a career cut tragically short by tuberculosis. this also marks our first foray into high-definition projection so you will get a chance to see this film looking better than it has looked since 1934. our screening date is saturday, 2.18.12 at 7:30 p.m. you can rsvp via facebook here. if you're not facebook-enabled just get in touch and i will get you the particulars. i hope to see you there. until then, take care of one another.

i could use a laugh

and i figured you probably could too. after the last 48 hours of less than enriching retail slaughter, i turn now to someone unsurpassed at turning malice for your fellow man into comedy gold. this publicity still of w.c. fields and eddie "rochester" anderson from you can't cheat an honest man (1939) kills me with its comic potential energy.

as my dear old grandfather litvak said, just before they swung the trap, he said "you can't cheat an honest man. never give a sucker an even break or smarten up a chump".

vital-graph: it's a gift

this is part of an ongoing series in which i discuss the films that matter most to me. the only criterion they share is that i find them indispensable, my desert island selections. some are established classics, some are definitely not, some occupy the grey space in between...

there is no single film comedian i find funnier than my favorite raconteur, roustabout and reprobate, w.c. fields and no film of his makes me laugh harder than it's a gift (1934).

this thing is fields' essence distilled (quite appropriate). as with most of his work, the plot is threadbare, only existing to provide a skeletal framework that houses a series of brilliant gags and fields' grandiloquence. in the film, fields plays harold bissonette (pronounced bis-on-ay), the henpecked, downtrodden owner of a grocery store in new jersey. his dream of owning an orange ranch in california looks like it will become a reality with the untimely passing of his uncle bean. against his family's wishes, he takes his inheritance and buys an orange grove, packs the family up and heads west to prosperity. the orange grove is a disaster, a veritable wasteland. it seems this will be the final crushing indignity in a life that has hardly been idyllic up until now. fortune smiles upon the great man in the eleventh hour, however, and what looked like the single worst real estate decision ever made results in an incredible, and unlikely, windfall. his dedication to his dream has seen him through and it's nothing but california sunshine from now on.

the story in this particular film is not so important in and of itself. it's more important as the best example of the story fields told us his entire career. no comedian i can think of, with the exception of richard pryor, put more of his personal pain into his art in a noble attempt to tell us something about ourselves than fields. his films provide a running commentary on the dour life of the everyman, beset on all sides by shrewish wives, annoying children, accursed salesmen, nosy neighbors, demonic customers and bungling assistants. his struggle for those little victories and rare moments of peace are something most people can identify with and we'll gladly take each small claim he can stake on our behalf, even if sometimes it is only the curse muttered under his breath. these themes would arise again and again in fields' work as he constantly worked and refined material, each time making the joke cut a little closer to the bone. significant portions of it's a gift, for instance, are recycled from the early silent effort, it's the old army game (1926). even more significantly, though, these episodes are recycled from fields' life. his estrangement from first wife hattie and the anxiety over the separation from his son and his wife's unsettling influence over the child loom like a spectre over practically his entire filmic output. fortunately for us, he could turn this misery into comedy gold. it's a gift wastes no time in establishing these themes for us. the opening scene introduces us to our hapless hero as he tries to navigate the minefield of morning rituals in his household. his daughter's vanity and lack of consideration for her father results in him laying on a chair attempting to shave in a spinning mirror he has suspended from the bathroom light. his son's stray roller skate almost results in a broken neck for him and his wife's incessant badgering makes for a breakfast that never gets eaten. he rushes to work but it provides no relief as he must juggle his incompetent employee, a belligerent customer who wants ten pounds of cumquats and the hurricane force that is mr. muckle, the deaf and blind man who destroys the store in pursuit of a five cent pack of chewing gum.

put it down, honey!

fields' ear for the language is one of my favorite things about the man and this segment is a sterling demonstration of his skill. mr. muckle and mrs. dunk, the terms of endearment he showers the blind man with in an effort to stave off the store's destruction, ten pounds of cumquats - all of it genius. cumquats, that's an easy one. that's obviously far and away the funniest fruit you can keep in stock. his genius is demonstrated, though, by his choice of the amount. ten is the funniest number he could have reasonably chosen. don't believe me? replace it and see. six pounds of cumquats! nine pounds of cumquats! doesn't have the same punch. ten simply sounds the funniest. as if the verbal dexterity wasn't enough, this scene also introduces us to elwood dunk, portrayed by baby leroy, who was a tiny thorn in fields' side on more than one occasion. referring to the child as "blood poison", fields tries and fails to conduct business as usual as the tyke, fields' assistant and a barrel of molasses conspire to finish the job mr. muckle started. the refuge of work no longer an option, our intrepid hero returns home.

and here we are treated to one of my favorite comic sequences ever put on film. a misunderstanding over a wrong number ends with fields being exiled to the porch to get what little sleep he can salvage from this long night (of which, it is clear, there are many). words don't do it justice. here is a section of it.

sweet repose. and this is only a portion of this brilliant set piece. he is also assailed by baby elwood dunk again, who manages to nearly choke him to death with grapes and drop an ice pick into his skull, by abby and mrs. dunk who shout their conversation all around him, by his wife who wants to know who the women were he was just talking to, by mrs. frobisher and her squeaky clothesline, by a vegetable and fruit vendor noisily hawking his wares and, finally, by a fly. it is a masterpiece of slow burn and building frustration. it brings tears to my eyes. and, again, it's the little things that make all the difference. as funny as the jokes are, i laugh the hardest at the almost inaudible groan fields emits as the insurance salesman mounts the stairs. his weariness and exasperation with his fellow man, and his willingness to give voice to it, to say things we are all thinking but that other comedians wouldn't dare say, are the basis for some brilliant comedy. and he takes a shot whenever he can. when the neighbors gather to see them off one of them asks his wife what their first stop is going to be but fields heads the question off with his answer, "won't stop until we get five hundred miles from here", making quite clear the esteem in which he holds these jabbering mooncalves.

i'm with you all the way, bill.

the family makes their way westward to eventually arrive at the ruined orange grove that he purchased, sight unseen, and his family, disgusted with this turn of events, abandons him. it seems that all is lost. forlorn and dejected, he sits amidst the rubble of his purchase to ponder his fate. at this pivotal moment, a neighboring rancher races up the drive to inform him that, in actuality, his plot is prime after all. it is an ideal location for the grandstand of a proposed race track that is going in on the adjoining lot. his new neighbor advises him that the racetrack owners are on their way to make him an offer and to hold out for any price because they will pay it. after some negotiation, the staggering sum on $44,000 is settled upon which allows our beleaguered family man to live out his dream after all, and all in his own inimitable fashion. the dreamer, after a lifetime of suffering the slings and arrows of family and fortune, has finally arrived at his own personal shangri-la and he did it with a dogged self-reliance and a curmudgeonly grace.

it's one of my absolute favorites, and so is he. ever the underdog, he always managed to snatch victory from the jaws of ignoble defeat in the last reel, exposing fools and needling termagants all along the way. convention and propriety be damned! groucho marx always told a story about fields sitting in the bushes in front of his house and shooting at curiosity seekers with a BB gun. "today, he'd probably be arrested". probably so. i'd bail him out. any man that will boot a small child square in the ass when he deserves it is alright in my book. i'll watch his movies anytime.

the great man

"horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people" - w.c. fields

i have never known of a funnier man than w.c. fields. i have my dad to thank for passing along his abiding affection for the golden age greats - fields, the marx brothers, laurel and hardy, buster keaton and many others - to me. it's one of the greatest gifts i was ever given. out of them all, w.c. fields is nearest and dearest to my heart for a number of reasons. chief among those reasons is his obvious love of language. an avid reader, he was known to carry trunks full of books with him as he toured the vaudeville circuits in his youth. no other comedian of the era benefitted as much from the conversion from silents to talkies. his voice was one of the most unique instruments in comedy history. his verbal skill was unmatched by his peers. a master of the stinging aside, his throwaway lines were ten times better than bits others labored over for weeks. he took great joy in the sound of language as well as meaning, evident from just a quick glance at some of the character names in his scripts:

eustace p. mcgargle

j. effingham bellwether

augustus winterbottom

ambrose wolfinger

j. pinkerton snoopington

t. frothingill bellows

larson e. whipsnade

cuthbert j. twillie

egbert souse

cleopatra pepperday

and, my favorite, elmer prettywillie

of course, reading them here doesn't do any of them justice. when he says them, though, with the proper amount of venom, lasciviousness, malice, wonder or mirth, it's like music.

he was also a world class curmudgeon. and you know i can heartily endorse that platform. we share a number of the same views on child rearing.

but the best thing about what he did is that you simply never knew what to expect. like all the greats, he always surprised you. and that's the main reason i brought us all here today. most folks are only aware of the work he did toward the end of his life but that was just the tip of the iceberg with him. the films most people know him for came in what was, essentially, the third act of his career. as a young man he developed a number of skills that would serve him well in later life when he portrayed a series of raconteurs, roustabouts, carnival barkers and snake oil salesmen. in his vaudeville days, when he worked at fortescue's pier in atlantic city, new jersey, one of his primary jobs was drowning. if the matinees were slow he would swim out, feign drowning and be "rescued" (during which he would be conveniently taken into the theater). once a large enough crowd had assembled he would be revived and the show would begin. he sometimes "drowned" three or four times a day.

what he did best in those early days, though, was juggle.

no joke. he was billed as "the world's greatest eccentric juggler". and he had formidable skills. if you only are aware of his work from the late 30s/early 40s you might never be able to imagine that this oddly shaped man, renowned as one of hollywood's great drunkards (highly exaggerated, i think), would have ever been able to juggle at all, much less be one of the best. this is where you would be surprised. this clip is from the old fashioned way (1934) and his creativity and dexterity are remarkable, especially for a man of fifty-four.

the guy just slays me. every time.

if you'd like to see all of the old fashioned way you can find it in the w.c. fields comedy collection, vol. 2 along with several other films. i highly recommend it. thanks for reading/watching.

drat!