THE MAN ON THE FLYING TRAPEZE
US, 1935, 65 minutes, Black and white.
W.C. Fields, Mary Brian, Kathleen Howard, Grady Sutton, Walter Brennan.
Directed by Clyde Bruckman.
The Man on the Flying Trapeze is only brief but is considered one of W.C. Fields’ best films. He contributed to the storyline.
He plays an ordinary working man who is harassed by his wife (Kathleen Howard) and put upon by his mother-in-law. He also has a difficult boss. One day he decides to take the afternoon off and has a series of adventures – especially since he told his boss that he was going to his mother-in-law’s funeral. Interactions with a policeman, a chauffeur, chasing a tyre, getting hit by the body of a wrestler from the ring lead to all kinds of difficulties. However, he finishes up getting admiration from them all (**??) , a raise – and is able to go on a holiday.
W.C. Fields had made an enormous impact in films in the 1930s. The film was directed by Clyde Bruckman, a prolific writer who, unfortunately, was a severe alcoholic who finally committed suicide in 1955. However, he contributed to a number of films of Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd.
1. Entertaining W.C.Fields comedy? The quality and type of the comedy? The nature of its appeal? To what audience? Exasperated men identifying with Fields?
2. The conventions of the comedy? Artificial situations, Fields' dialogue, written by himself? The American household, police, work?
3. Black and white photography, music, locations? Unreal, real?
4. How possible was the plot? Did this matter?
5. Fields character as the exasperated American husband, his joining with the robbers, his going to the police and his being arrested, the court sequence? Background of work being out of work, harassed by his wife, devoted daughter? His being vindicated by his daughter and the happy ending? The predicaments, the exasperation, the vindication?
6. How well drawn for the purpose of comedy were the minor characters; the robbers and their singing, the police, the judge, the wife and her exasperation and her haughtiness, the in-laws, the brother in law and his being pampered, the daughter and her devotion?
7. The hero in the sequence in persuading him to go down to face the robbers, joining in the singing, the experience of the police station, his skill at his work and memory, his being out of work and at home, his daughter negotiating the improvement, final ride in the car, the scenes of his brother in-law being attacked by the rest of the family?
9. What themes of American life were presented via comedy parody and satire?
