Watch Never Give a Sucker an Even Break For Free

Wow! Such a good movie.

Strong and Moving!

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

AMC did such a thorough synopsis that I won't even attempt to explain everything here; just the highlights. There are several wildly-connected stories that seem to make no sense whatsoever, at first. It starts with W.C. getting heckled by two little boys and getting socked in the puss by a boyfriend who thought his girlfriend was being insulted. Fields is really yelling at the kids. All this, while standing in front of a huge billboard advertising "The Bank Dick". Next he trades insults with a very chunky waitress whose diner is out of practically everything (35 Cents for breakfast!). There is also an ice cream soda shop scene where he tries to eat the ice cream with two straws. "This was supposed to be in a bar... but it'll play the same anyway"! Liquor jokes abound including bottles falling out of airplanes and fermented yak milk. The main story line is explained in a strange script about Field's impossible trip to Russia to sell nuts to the natives. He finds a naive beautiful blond and her mother (Margaret DuMont) living in a beautiful mountaintop retreat after he falls out of an airplane with an open-air observation deck. He lands safely in a pile of pillows and teaches the girl how to play "Sqidgilum" (A tame form of post office). Along the way super-cute "Diana Durbin" type, Gloria Jean, sings 3 thankfully short operatic numbers. Finally, the famous 7 minute climax involves a firetruck in a hilariously-perilous trip to the maternity hospital by a non-pregnant lady. This great slapstick footage was reused in 2 other Universal Pictures: "Fireman Save My Child" and an Abbott & Costello movie. Gloria Jean is very cute. So are the Great Dane with fangs and the "fake" Gorilla! (Thankfully, the story was changed and edited so there is no mention of Gloria Jean's mom, who was to fall off a trapeze and die!).

Your response to "Never Give A Sucker An Even Break" will largely depend on your taste for W. C. Fields and / or surrealism. If you like at least one (or both) of the above, you'll probably be in heaven; if you don't, you probably won't even finish it. The film is both self-deprecating and self-serving; Fields is not afraid to make fun of himself, but it seems like he felt that, at this stage of his career, he didn't even need a script anymore: he could just show up in front of the camera, say some funny lines (his delivery is slower than usual, probably due to health problems), place himself (and others) in a series of inexplicable situations, and the audience would have no choice but to roll around on the floor laughing. This stream-of-consciousness, breaking-of-the-fourth-wall style may seem revolutionary, until you remember that the Marx Brothers had already done that sort of thing 10 years earlier (Groucho talking to the audience in "Horse Feathers", as Chico is about to start playing the piano: "I have to stay here, but there is no reason YOU folks shouldn't go out into the lobby until this thing blows over!"). Speaking of the Marx Brothers, their frequent co-star Margaret Dumont also appears here, but her role is disappointingly small; and the young Gloria Jean, who has a terrific voice but her songs have about as much to do with anything else as....anything else, co-starred with Groucho in his later vehicle "Copacabana". The film does end with a (literal) bang, though: a car chase that features some incredibly dangerous and accomplished stunt driving. **1/2 out of 4.

In this movie W.C. Fields plays himself.Or at least he shares the name with him.He tries to sell the weirdest film story to Esoteric Studios.He introduces the script to the producer, Mr. Pangborn (actor Franklin Pangborn shares the name with that character).He's not too pleased with the story, where Fields is with his niece, Gloria Jean, played by Gloria Jean.In the story these two are flying to Russia with an airplane that has an open-air rear platform.Fields jumps off the plane to go after his flask (naturally) but lands safely in a nest high atop a cliff where he finds a beautiful and naive daughter and her not so beautiful mother.He escapes the cliff but comes back to marry the mother, Mrs. Hemogloben after he finds out she's wealthy (only to escape again).Why wouldn't this story sell, I just wonder!? Then we see Fields giving a ride to a woman who wants to go the Maternity hospital where her daughter is about to give birth.And what a ride it is! In this Edward F. Cline movie Never Give a Sucker an Even Break (1941) W.C. Fields gives his last starring performance.This boozing comedian lived during years 1880-1946.He comes up with lots of funny and witty stuff in this movie.Just look at those moments with the heavy waitress.Gloria Jean, who was 14 at the time is adorable as the niece.How she says: "My uncle Bill.. but I still love him!"And her singing with the strong operatic voice is just fantastic.Franklin Pangborn is hilarious.Margaret Dumont, who often romanced with Groucho Marx now romances with Fields as Mrs. Hemogloben.You got to love her.Susan Miller is her daughter Ouliotta Delight Hemogloben who has never seen a man before.Got to love her too and would like to play that kissing game with her that Fields does.Then there's Leon Errol as a rival.We also see two young hecklers, Billy Lenhart (Butch) and Kenneth Brown (Buddy).What a funny comedy this is!

The VHS version of "Never Give a Sucker An Even Break" (1941), at least the one from MCA Home Video, is an especially nice print; considerably better than their "It's a Gift" issue. There should be a DVD out by mid-2007 but since the original film is full screen format there is little to gain by waiting on the DVD. This was W. C. Field's version of Altman's "The Player" (which it inspired), in which Fields applied the lessons of a lifetime to satirizing the movie industry. It's not as light-hearted nor as structured as his earlier features, but makes an especially appropriate swan song for a performer whose health was failing, whose attitude was bad, and whose style of wry humor and subtle sight gags was being replaced by the slapstick of Laurel and Hardy, the Three Stooges, and The Marx Brothers (Fields self-reflectively references Groucho's mustache when the cleaning lady holds a push broom near his face). Like Altman (but for very different reasons) Fields had not endeared himself to the Hollywood establishment. He could only get his screenplay into production by agreeing to use it as a showcase for newcomer Gloria Jean (being deservedly groomed as the next Judy Garland- Deanna Durbin). So in his last staring role Fields simply plays himself pitching his original script to a producer at Esoteric Pictures. Gloria Jean also plays herself, the only fictional element being that Fields is supposed to be her Uncle Bill. Field's involved pitch goes back and forth between a discussion of the script with the producer (Frank Pangborn) and his wife (Mona Barrie), and the imagined final cut of the scene they are discussing. Barrie was an incredible talent and is the one to watch in the office sequences. She plays an aloof Kate Beckinsale type actress who Fields must somehow insert into his film even though there is no character even remotely suitable. So you get the classic sequence of Fields proposing that she wear a beard in order to play the male lead, and Barrie's mostly nonverbal reactions sell the whole routine. Of course all this is a reflection of the Hollywood reality, where many scripts only made it into production because they featured a big part for an executive's wife/girlfriend or for a particular star that the studio was anxious to feature. Another great self-reflective moment occurs when the producer complains about the continuity problems in Field's script; not just an industry issue but the basic premise of "Never Give a Sucker An Even Break". Ironically, Gloria Jean has a lot of charm and surprisingly good chemistry with Fields; their scenes together allow him to exhibit a refreshingly pleasant side to his standard character. Her songs are all nicely done (if somewhat awkwardly inserted) and the movie within a movie technique provides an almost documentary behind the scenes look at film production techniques 65 years ago. Susan Miller supplements Gloria Jean's numbers with a fun jive arrangement of "Coming Through the Rye". The climax features the most entertaining car chase sequence in movie history. It had to all be staged because there were no computer-generated effects in those days. Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.