During the late 1960s and early 1970s, a film craze hit the
college audience. No, it wasn’t “2001: A Space
Odyssey.” It was a revival of films by the comedian W.C.
Fields.
“I was in junior high and high school towards the tail end
of that,” said David Pendleton, programmer for the UCLA Film
and Television Archive’s new Fields retrospective starting
tonight in the James Bridges Theater. “You know how you get
Bruce Lee posters for your dorm room? They used to have W.C. Fields
posters for your dorm room,” Pendleton said.
The popularity of Fields, however, gave way to a drought of his
films in the public limelight. Fields biographer James Curtis
thinks overexposure did Fields in to some degree.
“Everybody was so familiar with him, there wasn’t
demand for his work anymore,” Curtis said. “It got to
the point where there’s a whole generation of students and
people who could be interested in his work and haven’t been
exposed to it.”
The UCLA Archive hopes to remedy that with its screenings and
perhaps spark another revival. The event even piqued the support of
John Cleese of Monty Python fame. He’ll be coming to campus
to introduce screenings of “You Can’t Cheat an Honest
Man” and “The Old-Fashioned Way” on April 12.
The Monty Python connection is clear in Fields’ typical
style of randomly juxtaposed stories. In “The Bank
Dick,” Fields’ character starts directing a film but
later becomes a bank security man without reference to the previous
storyline. In “Never Give a Sucker an Even Break,”
Fields’ last film and a precursor to other surreal
film-within-films such as last year’s
“Adaptation,” Fields plays himself pitching a
screenplay to a producer much like in his real life.
“There’s a point at which the film is unlike
anything else made up to that time,” Curtis said. “I
think it was tough for audiences to get used to it. The parts that
garnered it a reputation in the 1960s and ’70s. It was
considered 20 years ahead of its time.”
Despite being modern in sensibility, the films have languished
without public screenings. Some of Fields’ films are
available only on nitrate, a highly flammable medium as opposed to
standard 35mm prints.
While Charlie Chaplin’s and Buster Keaton’s
popularity remain high, Fields hasn’t taken his place with
them. “You had Chaplin dealing with the great social issues
of the day. Keaton was sinking entire boats, having buildings blown
down on top and around him,” Curtis said. “Fields was
fighting with fly paper and kicking babies and small dogs.
It’s a whole different type of comedy, but (one) based on
human nature, whether they’re born 100 years ago or
10.”
Fields started out as a juggler, in the vaudeville circuit. In
1915, he joined the Ziegfield Follies and later made his way to
success on radio and film. He had a mythic persona, often involving
his alcoholism, which he perpetuated in his films.
“People like the idea of Fields as someone who was mean
and drank a lot,” Curtis said. “People have a tendency
to perceive Fields as less precise … and not the same level of
fastidiousness as you would expect of Chaplin or Keaton, which is
not true. What he did, he was able to make look easy.”
For more info, call (310) 206-FILM or go to
www.cinema.ucla.edu.