A few words about…™ The Bank Dick – in Blu-ray

W.C. Fields is one of my favorite comedians and have most everything of him on my disc shelf and soon this new release too.

Old home video (laserdisc at least) offered very poor sound quality. The old "laserdisc newsletter" said it sounded like the Bank Dick soundtrack was recorded underwater

Watching it now, and there are some small scratches and some speckles as well, but always on a frame-by-frame basis, rather than running through multiple frames. So it really only stands out if you freeze frame -- in motion, at a distance, it's all barely visible.

It's not as pretty as the stellar restoration of My Little Chickadee, but it's still a nice upgrade over SD.

If I’m remembering the Kino post about this new round of Fields titles, this and It’s A Gift are from HD masters Universal made about a decade ago, while The Old Fashioned Way is coming from a raw scan that Universal performed in 2017 that was color corrected and cleaned up by Kino this year.

So I guess what I’m saying is, this should be as bad as it gets and it sounds pretty darned good to me.

I’m thrilled to be getting these in HD. My Fields titles are among my most frequently revisited titles in my collection and I had practically given up hope on getting anything better than a DVD - I was just happy that the DVDs are all in reasonably presentable shape.

Hey, nothing about that socko-boff commentary?

cadavra said:

Hey, nothing about that socko-boff commentary?

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Didn‘t have time to check. Might it be someone we know?

Robert Harris said:

Didn‘t have time to check. Might it be someone we know?

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Biffle? Or maybe Shooster?

This is one of my all-time favorite comedies and I've already preordered along with It's a Gift and The Old Fashioned Way, coming the same day from Kino. They've already confirmed Man on the Flying Trapeze, You're Telling Me!, and You Can't Cheat an Honest Man for early 2022.

If you haven't seen this before, you're in for a real treat. Even if Fields' sort of humor isn't your thing, at least marvel at the stacked cast made up of the best 30s character actors - especially Franklin Pangborn and Grady Sutton (plus some guy named Shemp).

This isn’t my very favorite Fields film but I recognize why it is for many people - there’s a lot to love here and not a wasted moment of screen time.

It’s A Gift is probably my all time favorite of the bunch. You Can’t Cheat an Honest Man is pretty good, but not as funny as Fields and McCarthy were on radio (seek out those broadcasts if you’ve never heard them!). Tillie and Gus doesn’t get mentioned very often these days but I have a real soft spot for it.

Patrick McCart said:

This is one of my all-time favorite comedies and I've already preordered along with It's a Gift and The Old Fashioned Way, coming the same day from Kino. They've already confirmed Man on the Flying Trapeze, You're Telling Me!, and You Can't Cheat an Honest Man for early 2022.

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Oh that's good news about the those last three really being in the queue. You know, I've seen all of these so many times over the past - oh, five decades! - that I can play back practically every scene in my memory, but that only makes the anticipation of seeing them play out for real while I'm watching them yet again all the sweeter.

Robert Harris said:

Didn‘t have time to check. Might it be someone we know?

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Ehhhhhhhh...could be!

Looking forward to hearing it - getting the Fields films in HD would have been enough but it’s even more of a gift that they’re actually getting new bonus material.

Robert Harris said:

Those familiar with the career of one W.C. Fields, a spurious name if I ever heard one, will know that he had his cinematic roots back in 1915. He worked with Griffith on a couple of products in 1925, and by the early '30s was perfecting his persona in both shorts and small parts in sound features.

If one surveys his feature career for the films for which he's known today, you'll find them running from 1933 during his Paramount period - Tillie and Gus (1933), You're Telling Me and The Old Fashioned Way and It's a Gift (1934), Man on the Flying Trapeze and Poppy (1936) then to his move across town to Universal, where he wrote and starred in what are probably his best works, beginning in 1939 with You Can't Cheat an Honest Man, My Little Chickadee and The Bank Dick in 1940, and finally Never Give a Sucker an Even Break in 1941.

My Little Chickadee arrived 6/21. Bank Dick and Never Give are due 11/9, which only leaves You Can't Give... among the missing - but if Kino continues its yeoman-like work toward releasing the classics, we're bound to see it soon.

As a Blu-ray, The Bank Dick looks far better than okay. Obviously derived from a dupe, and a bit on the course side (grain), it's fine from a normal seating distance, with no real problems to report.

A wonderful film with Fields in to form.

Image – 3.5

Audio – 4

Pass / Fail – Pass

Highly Recommended

RAH

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Don't forget he appeared in 4 more features before he passed and a short that was never assembled for release and might have gone in the 1946-47 Universal Pictures vault clean out and destruction of many silents.

cadavra said:

Hey, nothing about that socko-boff commentary?

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Hey, I just put it in to listen to it this morning! I'm preparing to be socko-boffed!

Josh Steinberg said:

This isn’t my very favorite Fields film but I recognize why it is for many people - there’s a lot to love here and not a wasted moment of screen time.

It’s A Gift is probably my all time favorite of the bunch. You Can’t Cheat an Honest Man is pretty good, but not as funny as Fields and McCarthy were on radio (seek out those broadcasts if you’ve never heard them!). Tillie and Gus doesn’t get mentioned very often these days but I have a real soft spot for it.

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Just a guess, but I think that part of the reason why it's so beloved is because of how utterly unrestrained Egbert Souse is in this film. It's Fields with all the gloves off. He's so enjoyably good, being so enjoyably bad. And yes, the whole thing moves like a runaway freight train.

moviepas said:

Don't forget he appeared in 4 more features before he passed and a short that was never assembled for release and might have gone in the 1946-47 Universal Pictures vault clean out and destruction of many silents.

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I’m familiar with the features - used to have a print of Sensations - but not the uncompleted film. Info, please.

Would like to see a new release of a collection of his shorts which Criterion did 20 years ago. My favorites are The Fatal Glass of Beer and The Dentist.

Angelo Colombus said:

Would like to see a new release of a collection of his shorts which Criterion did 20 years ago. My favorites are The Fatal Glass of Beer and The Dentist.

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These are now owned by Cohen Media (via the Rohauer Collecion) and have newer remasters, plus The Dentist and The Fatal Glass of Beer are included on the Flicker Alley/Cinemuseum Mack Sennett Collection Blu-ray set. Criterion Channel had all but The Dentist a few months ago and they looked good. Kino is now distributing Cohen, so hopefully it's a future release. The Sennett set is excellent and both Fields shorts even have original Paramount opening/closing titles.

sbjork said:

Just a guess, but I think that part of the reason why it's so beloved is because of how utterly unrestrained Egbert Souse is in this film. It's Fields with all the gloves off. He's so enjoyably good, being so enjoyably bad. And yes, the whole thing moves like a runaway freight train.

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This says it all!