WC Fields and Louise Brooks

Today marks the 136th anniversary of the birth of boozy comedy star WC Fields.  Known for his 1930s classics like My Little Chickadee and It's A Gift.  Fields started in Vaudeville and was already and experienced and established star by the time cinema came around.  In his 40s during the 1920s  he was older then most of the leading men of the period, but he was still a popular star.   In the 1926 film It's The Old Army Game fields worked with flapper icon, Louise Brooks.   Brooks and Fields  had worked together in the follies, and both being iconoclasts and something of outsiders in the Hollywood scene, they were good friends.   In the film Field's plays a put upon drugstore owner, and Brooks is his charming counter girl.

Luring customers to the shop with her charms.

It's a sweet film and fans of Field's will recognize many of the gags from his later works, like It's A Gift.   Field's is funny,  but I think he was still getting used to the new medium of film when this was made, and he is one star whose better, and funnier, with sound.  The best thing about the film is Brooks.  Its nice to see her playing a sweet small town flapper as opposed to a vampy one.    She's charming and adorable in her flapper frocks and I wish the film had more of her.

It's The Old Army Game can be seen in its entirety on you tube.  It's a good example of a silent comedy, with some big stars in the early days of their careers.