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Man on the Flying Trapeze (1935)
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Overview
User Rating:
Release Date:
3 August 1935 (USA) morePlot:
Hard-working, henpecked Ambrose Ambrose Wolfinger takes off from work to go to a wrestling match with catastrophic consequences. full summary | add synopsisUser Comments:
Absolutely One of W.C. Fields' Best moreCast
(Complete credited cast)| W.C. Fields | ... | Ambrose Wolfinger | |
| Mary Brian | ... | Hope Wolfinger | |
| Kathleen Howard | ... | Leona Wolfinger | |
| Grady Sutton | ... | Claude Neselrode | |
| Vera Lewis | ... | Mrs. Cordelia Neselrode | |
| Lucien Littlefield | ... | Mr. Peabody | |
| Oscar Apfel | ... | President Malloy | |
| Lew Kelly | ... | Adolph Berg | |
| Tammany Young | ... | 'Willie' the Weasel | |
| Walter Brennan | ... | 'Legs' Garnett | |
| Edward Gargan | ... | Patrolman #1 | |
| James Burke | ... | Patrolman #2 | |
| Carlotta Monti | ... | Ambrose's secretary |
Additional Details
Parents Guide:
Add content advisory for parentsRuntime:
65 minCountry:
USALanguage:
EnglishColor:
Black and WhiteAspect Ratio:
1.37 : 1 moreSound Mix:
Mono (Western Electric Noiseless Recording)Fun Stuff
Trivia:
This was the last film directed by Clyde Bruckman. Although Bruckman's name appears on the credit, this film was actually directed by W.C. Fields, who took over after Bruckman had to quit early in the shoot due to the effects of his alcoholism. This is the only film on which Fields technically worked as his own director. moreFAQ
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Discuss this movie with other users on IMDb message board for Man on the Flying Trapeze (1935)| Recent Posts (updated daily) | User |
|---|---|
| Man on the Flying Trapeze available on DVD | chaunceyg |
| W.C. Fields Filing System | rstephen52 |
| Man on the Flying Trapeze coming to DVD on 03/20/2007 | dfc99 |
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This was one of W.C. Fields' favorite films, and in fact was closest to his own family situation, or at least his version of it. It also reprises many of his skits worked out with the writer J.P. McEvoy, which he also replays in It's A Gift and other W.C. Fields' movies of the domestic type, like The Bank Dick.
I love this movie; it contains much of the actual W.C. Fields. The son, Claude, for example. W.C. Fields' and Hattie Fields, his wife, were estranged while their son, William Claude, Jr., grew up. Fields believed, according to biographers, including his grandson, that his wife turned his son against him. He always believed that if he'd had a daughter, she would be a more loyal child. In this movie, the son, Claude, is awful to him, while the daughter, Hope (!), is loyal and loving.
The gags fly: "How can you hurt a person by throwing him on his head?" "It must be hard to lose your mother-in-law." "Yes, it is, almost impossib-, um, yes." Or my favorite exchange, the most brilliantly poignant comment on an unhappy marriage, I think, ever portrayed in a movie. "Is your toast warm, Dad?" "No, dear, it's cold. But it's all right. I've been eating cold toast now for eight years; I like it." All the while looking as miserable as anyone ever could. God, he was brilliant.
There's also the sense that Ambrose, the character The Great Silly plays, is someone lost in a world that he doesn't understand. The scene where instead of the burglars, HE is the one sent to jail. Or the scene where he's parked in a no parking zone, and the painful exchanges with the cop, the chauffeur, etc. Or when he loses the car's wheel and chases it down the hill, over the dale, down the railroad tracks, barely escaping death twice.
His actual mistress (W.C. and Hattie, Catholics, never divorced), Carlotta Monti, plays his secretary, and is the one who explains that her mother is good friends with Hookalakah Meshobbab, somehow without howling with laughter.
Ah, what a film, and it's a disgrace that it's not on DVD yet.