You Can't Cheat An Honest Man (1939) :
Brief Review -
You can't cheat an honest movie fan with a lame attempt at the classic "The Old Fashioned Way" (1934). WC Fields has done many great comedies in the 30s, but "The Old Fashioned Way" is my top favorite. It's not just a great comedy, but it has that sentimental touch at the end-something what we saw in Charlie Chaplin's cult "The Circus." Don't know why You Can't Cheat An Honest Man looked like a lame copy of that movie. A circus owner is struggling to pay his debts and is trying to avoid the cashiers. Amidst his feeble attempts, his daughter comes to visit the circus and falls in love with a ventriloquist. But when she learns about her father's debts, she decides to marry a rich fella who has been pursuing her for a long time. To be frank, that entire ventriloquist stuff was a big disaster. He was making the puppet talk even on unnecessary occasions. Forget that, but those puppets could talk even when the ventriloquist wasn't present. In one scene, we see a lion eating the wooden puppet, and yet he is talking. Seriously, what the hell? Fields' storytelling in the marriage scene didn't look funny at all. It looked forced. However, the table game was fun. It's unbearable to see WC Fields fail to make you laugh when most of the screen space is under his skin. Edgar Bergen has done an excellent job with his puppet, but it was too overdone. Too many scenes for them and too much talk spoiled the mood during many good-looking scenes. Constance Moore had only one job, and that was to look cute and beautiful. She did it. John Arledge hardly has three scenes and doesn't leave any impact. The film had a decent screenplay, but it lacked comic punches. George Marshall and Edward F. Cline made a film that can be forgotten within 5 minutes after the end appears. I wasn't just ready for such a mediocre show from Fields, so I am feeling more sad.
RATING - 5/10*
By - #samthebestest.
You can't cheat an honest movie fan with a lame attempt at the classic "The Old Fashioned Way" (1934). WC Fields has done many great comedies in the 30s, but "The Old Fashioned Way" is my top favorite. It's not just a great comedy, but it has that sentimental touch at the end-something what we saw in Charlie Chaplin's cult "The Circus." Don't know why You Can't Cheat An Honest Man looked like a lame copy of that movie. A circus owner is struggling to pay his debts and is trying to avoid the cashiers. Amidst his feeble attempts, his daughter comes to visit the circus and falls in love with a ventriloquist. But when she learns about her father's debts, she decides to marry a rich fella who has been pursuing her for a long time. To be frank, that entire ventriloquist stuff was a big disaster. He was making the puppet talk even on unnecessary occasions. Forget that, but those puppets could talk even when the ventriloquist wasn't present. In one scene, we see a lion eating the wooden puppet, and yet he is talking. Seriously, what the hell? Fields' storytelling in the marriage scene didn't look funny at all. It looked forced. However, the table game was fun. It's unbearable to see WC Fields fail to make you laugh when most of the screen space is under his skin. Edgar Bergen has done an excellent job with his puppet, but it was too overdone. Too many scenes for them and too much talk spoiled the mood during many good-looking scenes. Constance Moore had only one job, and that was to look cute and beautiful. She did it. John Arledge hardly has three scenes and doesn't leave any impact. The film had a decent screenplay, but it lacked comic punches. George Marshall and Edward F. Cline made a film that can be forgotten within 5 minutes after the end appears. I wasn't just ready for such a mediocre show from Fields, so I am feeling more sad.
RATING - 5/10*
By - #samthebestest.