The Bank Dick

Through a good chunk of The Bank Dick, I kept thinking to myself, Jim Carrey is a lot funnier than this guy.  After I established my personal hierarchy of comedians, I settled down with the second half of The Bank Dick and found it more and more amusing.  I re-watched the first half and still found it plodding and dull, but WC Fields stood out more, the uniqueness of him.  I guess because I've seen him exclusively as a charicature, and to watch him on celluloid with actual fleshy textures, as he stands outside in the sun, I had to think twice that WC Fields actually existed as a person. .  WC Fields might have been way ahead of his time, but in our day and ege where many a slob and loser makes his way to the top, he's another face in the crowd. 

the narrative is an improbable and unimportant string of comic pearls of which only a few shine today. 

The comedy is painfully slow throughout the first half, which involves his dysfunctional family routine, his stumbling upon a movie studio where he convinces everyone that he's the new director, and a foiled bank robbery.  The chase scene at the end is seminal work that still stands, probably because its pacing is apiece with ours today. 

He does have a way of making utterances such as Mother of Pearl, and Godfrey Daniel sound genuinely obscene. 

One thought I chewed on for a while was whether the idea of WC Fields was meant as a bold retaliation to the capra view of america, but turning it on its ear, but on the other hand, it reinforces those values, makes them more digestible with those of more cynical tastes.  We have a bum stumbling through the town, and he's the focus, but like any Capra hero, he comes out on top at the end.

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