Cinema Spotlight You're Telling Me

January 29, marks 137 years since my favorite comedian WC Fields

entered the world.   It is certainly a testament to his unmatched hilarity that nearly a century and a half later people are still watching his films.   So far on the blog I have written about It's A Gift, It's The Old Army Game, Pool Sharks, and fashions in Fields films.  This year I want to focus on 1934's You're Telling Me!

This isn't one of Field's most famous film, but it is, in my opinion, one of his best.   

As in most of his other classic 1930s films  Field's plays a relatively ordinary guy.  A hapless inventor named Sam Bisbee

with a wife and daughter

and of course a weakness for strong drink (in the clip below you can see him using one of his inventions a key hole finder for use upon returning late from the bar).






Sam is convinced he is on the verge of major success since he has succeeded in inventing a puncture proof tire which he believes will make him millions.   He arranges a meeting with an auto executive to show off his new tires, but naturally it doesn't go as planned. Bisbee's idea is to shoot at his tires with a gun, demonstrating the impenetrability, but unbeknown to him a police officer has moved his car and an identical car with normal tires is in its place.

Bisbee returns home distraught about his failure but his wife and daughter are completely unsympathetic.   His daughter Pauline, played by the lovely Joan Marsh ( I love her adorable tie neck sweater)

has gotten engaged to the richest bachelor in town Bob Murchison, played by Buster Crabbe,:

but her intended mother in law, Mrs. Murchison, played by Field's film regular Kathleen Howard is so disapproving of Sam that she has sworn to disinherit Bob if he marries Pauline.

Pauline, too proud to marry into a family that doesn't want her, ends the engagement and everyone is furious at Sam.

Depressed by his professional and familial troubles Sam resolves to kill himself.  He books a one way train ticket and carries some poison along on the ride.  However, at the last minute he changes his mind and decides to live.   

Meanwhile, also riding on the train is a beautiful women, the 
Princess Lescaboura, played by Adrienne Ames, (take a look at the amazing carved bangles she is wearing.)

Bisbee mistakes a bottle of iodine on the Princess's table for poison and tells her not to kill herself. He also tells her his entire story and his own recent plan to commit suicide.  Lescaboura is touched by Sam's kindness, and moved by the story of his daughter's recent heart break.   She decides to help Sam out.


Without telling him her true royal identity the Princess Lescaboura comes to Sam's town on a royal visit.  Mrs. Murchison as the towns leading  citizen  is beside herself with the idea of entertaining a royal.  

However, the Princess makes it clear that she is in town to see only her old friend Sam Bisbee.   An elaborate party is held at the Bisbee's home and Mrs. Murchison is forced to see Sam as her social equal.

By the end of the film Sam has sold his puncture proof tires for millions and Pauline and Bob are once again engaged.

All in all You're Telling Me! Is a delightful comedy with lots of fabulous 1930s fashions that deserves to be remembered.   It is available  on amazon as part of the WC Field's Comedy Collection, Volume Two.

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.  

Fashions in WC Fields Films

Despite his oft quoted dislike of dogs WC Fields remains one of my favorite film stars, and gets my vote for funniest comedienne ever.    I love all of his 1930s films and watch them every January in celebration of  his birthday.  Field's films, brilliant as they are, would not necessarily come to my mind when thinking of cinematic fashion.  Generally Fields plays an everyman sort, usually a hen pecked husband, with a fondness for drink, and often a sympathetic daughter.   As such his films do offer a wonderful glimpse  1930s fashions, there might not be any glamorous gowns, but his wives and daughters where the sorts of clothing that regular women would have worn.   As such I find myself drooling over many of the outfits in fields films, here are a few of my favorites.

The sweater and skirt set and bow trimmed dress below are worn by Joan Marsh as Pauline Bisbee, Field's Daughter in 1934's You're Telling Me!  The outfits, particularly the skirt and sweater, would have been common fare for any young women of the decade, but the platinum hair would have likely raised some eyebrows among the older generation:

 

 

You're Telling Me!  Actually has a more glamorous female character then most Field's films, Adrienne Ames who plays the Princess Lescaboura.  She wears elegant outfits like the fur trimmed one below throughout the film.    

In 1935 Field's made perhaps his most enduring film, It's A Gift, in which he played a hapless grocery store owner who inherits a large sum of money, buys an orange grove, and moves his dubious family to California.  This is my favorite Field's film, its side splittingly funny and the jokes, surprisingly contemporary and has some fantastic every day fashions.

His daughter Mildred, played by Jean Rouverol, wears the sort of clothes every day young ladies would have worn.   I particularly like this casual flower sprigged dress below:

It very much reminds me of a dress from Revamp vintage that I've been longing for:

One nice thing about It's A Gift is unlike a lot of films it also offers a glimpse of what an older women,  a middle aged house wife in the 1930s would have worn, Kathleen Howard play's Field's wife, Amelia Bisonette and wears a range of clothes form casual house dresses to more dress styles.

In the breakfast scene you can see Amelia's 30s style apron and house dress.

Etsy seller GreenBagginIt makes 1930s style reproduction aprons:

Or you can find the genuine article on Etsy too, this pink ruffled one from ZestVintage is particularly cute:

Later in the day when she goes to visit her husband at the store, she wears a tilt hat and a black floral dress:



For the wealthy Uncle Bean's funeral she wears a black crepe dress trimmed with a giant bow:

 

 

 

 

 

Etsy seller Vintage Dress Maker, makes a prices but beautiful 30s day dress that vaguely reminds me of a prettier version of both dresses:

 

 

Later in 1935 Field's made a very similar film, Man on the Flying Trapeze,  again with Kathleen Howard as his wife, in which he played a memory expert who attempts to take a day off to go to a boxing match and gets in a world of trouble.

 

Howard wears a nice dotted 30s day dress with a smaller bow:

 

 

 

and Mary Brian as his daughter wears a ruffled blouse and a cute straw boater.

 

 

 

 

I have one or two 1930s dress in my own closet that reminds me of the sorts of dresses worn in Field's films, they are my favorite dresses to wear because they are practical and comfortable for every day:

 

 

 

 

 

I just have to make sure I don't become a dreadful nag while wearing them!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Silent Film Sunday-WC Fields

January 29, marks the 134th anniversary of comedienne WC Fields birth.  One of my favorite film stars from the 1930s, Fields always makes me laugh.  Here is a younger Field's in one of his first film appearances, 1915's Pool Sharks.