Never Give a Sucker an Even Break (1941)

In another of the deceptive W.C. Fields titles (since it doesn’t have anything to do with a con man, though the quote remains associated with Fields) he plays himself, presumably in the style of radio shows of the time (“Why if it isn’t Mr. W.C. Fields.” [audience applause,]) along with Franklin Pangborn, also playing himself.

He works for Universal’s Esoteric Films’ division, (we even see him standing in front of a The Bank Dick (1940) bill board,) and is pushing a script, and a role for himself and his niece (Gloria Jean.)

During the reading of the script we see it acted out by the players: Fields and niece are flying in a fantastical plane with sundeck (even Pangborn indicates this is impossible) and scenes left over, or reused from previous W.C. Fields’ projects which were originally set in a train are reprised.

Fields accidentally drops a bottle of booze and without hesitation jumps after it, landing in a Rapunzel/Arabian Nights setting high up on a rocky mountain in the middle of a Russian village (not necessarily Russia) where men in Mexican costumes (or what passes for them) can also be seen.

[Reading the early script, that Russian colony actually has an explanation: It's still a fantasy representation, but in North Baja California there were some historic Russian settlements, and W.C. Fields might have been inspired when he heard about them on one of his trips to the Agua Caliente Casino in Tijuana.

So, the Russian and Mexican blend? Totally kosher, the Russian colony is really set in Northern Mexico.

The story structure with the studio segments and enacted movie script is already there in the very early script. There are some bits which were dropped, but the idea was there from the start.}

He meets with a young lady who has been hid away by her man-hating mother (a grotesquely made up Margaret Dumont – Groucho Marx is name dropped at one point.)

Guarded by saber toothed hounds and a man-sized ape creature they live away from the eyes of men.

He tricks the young lady into being kissed, and when her mother asks for more of the same, he jumps off the mountain.

At a goat’s milk bar in the village (set there in order to avoid censorship, but more likely simply thumbing his nose at the censors, as the drink proves to be highly alcoholic: A later scene will be held at an ice cream parlor,) he tells the story of where he’s just been, and just as he proves the rumor of her existence is real, it is revealed to him that the woman is said to be enormously wealthy.

A mountain climbing race then starts to see which of the guys at the bar will get to marry the woman and/or her daughter.

This is all nonsense, of course, and Pangborn rejects the script, and kicks Fields out of the studio.

The movie ends when, in an extended comedic action sequence, W.C. Fields races thru the streets of Hollywood in order to take a woman who he (mistakenly) believes is pregnant to the hospital.

The end.

This has got to be the weirdest, most disjointed and surreal of the Fields movies.

We simply go from one set piece to the next with no real plot or connective tissue between them.

Everyone is too cute for their own good; Fields is well past his prime (the animated cartoon which starts the titles is none too flattering) and is mostly recycling material and gags (even his juggling is sub par); a surly, overweight waitress is no substitute for a battle axe wife and her mother; and yet all of it is all so absurdly bizarre as to be required watching.