Re: The Old Fashioned Way (1934) W. C. Fields
Posted: Wed Jul 01, 2015 8:36 am
Howard wrote that she and Fields got along beautifully- he could be demanding, but as a former singer she'd worked in Grand Opera with REAL Prima Donnas.Henry wrote:Yes, precisely---that's why I think she's funny. Something about the comic exaggeration of her haughty indignation gets to me. Example: the hilarious scene at the breakfast table in "Man on the Flying Trapeze," when she reads "another of those delightful fragments by Gertrude Smuden," an obvious reference to Gertrude Stein: "We have what we have not, and what we have not, we have. Up is down, and down---are you listening?" "[chewing mouthful of toast]"Yes, dear." "---and down is out," etc. etc. She was the perfect comic foil of a spouse for his unique brand of "hen-pecked husband" humor. BTW, Fields movies often used character names that were actual ones familiar to him from his youth, like Smuden, McGonigle, Wolfinger, etc.marcapra wrote:Yes, Duggan is genuinely funny, whereas Kathleen Howard is just a hen-pecking scold.