WC Fields. “The Bank Dick”
You’ve got to trust me on something. The Bank Dick is one of the greatest screen comedies of all time. There’s a lot of really great subtext (some subtle, some not) and attention to detail. Fields wrote this, he’s at the top of his game on his next to last starring vehicle. Superbly (over)acted by the entire cast. Comedic chops abound. They strike the perfect tone together. Watch how Fields loses his hat while getting backed up by a crooked stock broker. Watch him reluctantly work to pay a home mortgage, getting bullied by a banker. Watch his indifference toward crime and refusal to take the police seriously, as he accidentally foils bank robberies, drives getaway cars, and encourages his prospective son-in-law to embezzle bank funds and buy stock in a beefsteak mine. He’s an existential everyman, stoically going about his life of burdens with ease, doing shots at 10 am before his first day on the job as a bank security guard. He looks as comfortable misdirecting and, indeed drugging, a bank examiner as he does showing off cigarette tricks to preteen kids who idolize him after he takes credit for something he didn’t do. An absolute tour de force of bad behavior, mistreatment, illegality and minor irritations. Easy to underrate, repeated viewings are rewarded to finally grasp the complete, subtle logic of this deceptively simple tale. It’s fraught with meaning, particularly for sensitive people who will, through Field’s many imperfections, recognize the small something in themselves that rages against hotshots, fatcats and morons and somehow still manage to sometimes control our lives. Down to the details, this film is an oddball masterpiece, a one-of-a-kind career-topping moment for an extraordinary entertainer, and one of the great innovators who, though world renowned and universally acclaimed as one of the alltime greats, still seems underappreciated when stacked against the perceived value of the legacies of the Marx Brothers and The Little Tramp. In “the bank Dick” he’s created a character of such subtlety and truth, but with a surreal edge and poetic perfection that, if you pay attention, will stick with you for weeks to come.
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