The Fatal Glass of Beer (Short 1933)

The Fatal Glass of Beer: Directed by Clyde Bruckman. With W.C. Fields, Rosemary Theby, George Chandler, Richard Cramer. The prodigal son of a Yukon prospector comes home on a night that “ain’t fit for man nor beast.”

“When this film was released in 1933, the majority of reviews were negative and even hostile. The film was hated and vilified; audiences and theatre owners found it tacky and cheap. They missed the whole point. The film is a sharp satire of both the Mellerdrammers of the early twentieth century and of studio filmmaking. Fields and Bruckman were too incisive as comics not to have done everything in this film very deliberately. From the overly obvious sets to the absolute WORST background projection ever seen, the film is a sly poke in Hollywoodu0026#39;s eye and thatu0026#39;s where its humor comes from. I just about wet myself the first time I saw Fields go out to u0026quot;milk the elku0026quot;. He stands in front of a background projection of elk in the snow and begins calling to them. When they start to run, they grow larger and larger, dwarfing the non-plussed Fields. Sadly, since this is a public domain title, itu0026#39;s hard to find a good copy of it. About the best Iu0026#39;ve seen is on the u0026quot;6 Films by W.C. Fieldsu0026quot; LD or DVD”