The Dentist (1932)

User Rating:

7.1/10   

Director:

Leslie Pearce

Writers:

Release Date:

9 December 1932 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Short

Plot:

An unconventional dentist deals with patients in slapstick fashion.

Plot Keywords:

Dentist | Golf | Iceman | Dental Nurse | Father Daughter Relationship

Cast

W.C. Fields	...	Dentist
Marjorie Kane	...	Daughter (as 'Babe' Kane)
Arnold Gray	...	Arthur the iceman
Dorothy Granger	...	Patient (Miss Peppitone)
Elise Cavanna	...	Patient (Miss Mason)
Zedna Farley	...	Dental Assistant

Runtime:

21 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Photophone System)

Certification:

Finland:S (1972) | Australia:G

Filming Locations:

Lakeside Country Club - 4500 W. Lakeside Drive, Toluca Lake, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

Mack Sennett Comedies

Trivia:

On the Criterion DVD edition, a musical background has been added to the soundtrack for the lost golf ball sequence.

Goofs:

Boom mic visible: The shadow of the boom falls on the ground behind the Dentist at the golf course.

Quotes:

Dentist: Get those teeth out of there, they're in my lie.

Movie Connections:

Featured in 100 Years of Comedy (1997) (V)

As watchable today, even if you're about to attend a dentist

Following his success in a couple of cameo appearances in Paramount-features the same year, W.C. Fields was hastily invited to join the lot of Mack Sennett-comedians. By this time Sennett's reputation as a comedy king had faded somewhat, being less eager to explore new working methods than contemporaries such as Hal Roach. In this respect, Fields could not have entered at a more convenient point; although he made only four shorts for Sennett, this work was to establish his troubled personality for the movie-going public as well as launching a brand of comedy which, while often imitated, always remained his trademark alone.

THE DENTIST was the first of the four and perhaps the most experimental as such. Here, Fields talks and behaves exactly as most people remember him do; he is impatient to the point of incredible, locking his daughter into her room whenever they argue, snarling at anyone who comes in his way. ("Forget where I told you to stand! YOU stand where I tell ya!") It is this aspect of his screen personality with which most people identify Fields, probably in large part because it most strikingly separates him from his more vivid contemporaries. Curiously enough, however, throughout his career Fields would experiment more with his personality than Stan Laurel or the Marx Brothers ever dared; in most films, the hard-drinking misanthrope is far more likable, choosing another way of expressing his dissatisfaction in the world, and equipped with more wit and less obvious hatred. It has been suggested that Fields may have recognized that a man as cynical as THE DENTIST would not be able to sustain, and he might have been right. For this particular film, however, every element seems to work out in context to each other, and Fields pulls off a performance as hilarious as ever.

The Great Man appears as the most horrible dentist imaginable. The fact that he cancels appointments with patients may be his most appealing trait, if only because it saves the victim from being verbally and, most of all, physically humiliated. If you find any humor in the darker aspects of life, or if you happen to possess self-irony enough to admit that you might share some of Fields's traits (even if only spiritually), you'll find the disastrous golf match and Fields's ping-pong dialogue with his daughter as side-splitting as I do. Newcomers of The Great Man looking for something cheerful to cheer them up may be turned somewhat off, however. The one part that seems to catch the attention of the unfamiliar is a famous routine in which one of Fields's female patients, in her need to outlet the horrible pain which she suffers during treatment, wraps her legs around Fields's abdominal. Needless to say (but I say it anyhow), from behind it seems as though the couple are doing something else than pulling teeth (or at least one would think of it as an odd moment to examine the tooth register). This is probably the single most risqué comedy act put on film up till that time and for a great number of years afterwards, yet modern viewers tend to express some disappointment in the short time spent on the gag, and above all that Fields did not pull it even a step further. Indeed, when the comedian had performed the same routine in a stage act several years before, it is reported to have been made far more direct (or could it be that unprepared audiences of the time simply reacted more shocked than we would consider reasonable?). In other words, one may argue that this bit must be seen in context to 1932-standars to be fully enjoyed today. However, the curious thing is that, for me, such gags fall flat whenever they are done today, while the priceless hilarity of such routines remain intact in older subjects; we just don't expect them to come. They are underplayed but all the funnier because of it. If this leg-wrapping bit with Fields was to be made now, you can bet your pulled tooth on that the director would have added it with a solid touch of 'puff and pant' to emphasize the sexual references. Fields couldn't go that far, but he never had to. Our imagination figures out the rest, and experience tells me that it usually does the best job.

In short, even if you are only curious about the famous routine, or if you wish to witness a comedy original in his prime (or at the very edge to the beginning of it, if that's a phrase), you should give THE DENTIST a try, or several if required. I know some say that this should better not be viewed before you go to the dentist, but I think otherwise; in fact, earlier this year I happened to attend a dentist as impatient and sarcastic as Fields himself, and the thought of this very film helped me to ignore the embarrassment and just laugh at it all. I'll admit I'm grateful the guy didn't have to pull a tooth, though…