The Fatal Glass of Beer

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Movie
Original title The Fatal Glass of Beer
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1933
length 18 minutes
Rod
Director Clyde Bruckman
script WC Fields
production Mack Sennett
occupation

The Fatal Glass of Beer is an American short film comedy directed by Clyde Bruckman from 1933. WC Fields plays the leading role , who was also responsible for the script.

action

The Snavely couple lead a hard but virtuous existence in a snow-covered wooden hut in the remote Yukon . Mr. Snavely works there as a prospector. The couple's son, Chester, left them a few years ago to look for work in the big city but became delinquent due to a hedonistic lifestyle and alcohol use. Eventually Chester went to jail for stealing some securities. Mr. Snavely therefore sings the song about the “fatal glass of beer” to Officer Posthlewhistle of the Canadian Mounties , which warns urgently against alcohol. The officer is deeply touched and cries.

Just as the couple is talking about their son again over dinner, Chester, released from prison, returns home, where he is happily welcomed back by his parents. When Mr. Snavely is milking the elk outside , Mrs. Snavely asks her son if he really stole the securities back then. Chester says yes, and Mrs. Snavely says not to say a word about it to his father as it would break his heart. A little later, Mr. Snavely asks his son whether he stole the securities, which he in turn affirms. Mr. Snavely also asks Chester to keep quiet, as it would break his mother's heart if she found out. Chester explains that he threw away the stolen securities out of remorse. When his suddenly greedy parents find out about this, they reproach him and brutally throw him out of the house into the icy night.

background

The Fatal Glass of Beer was the second of a total of four 20-minute films that WC Fields made for comedy producer Mack Sennett. The plot is based on a stage play that wanted to warn of the dangers of alcohol. Moral pieces of this kind were popular with audiences at the time, and Fields, notorious for his drinking fondness, wanted to parody them in a cynical way. In the end, fittingly, the couple, shown as a moral role model, turns out to be particularly greedy. The four actors perform their text with exaggerated melodrama , in the many sentimental scenes there is excessive weeping. At the same time, Fields makes fun of the stage-like nature of the material and the film adaptation. Seven times during the course of the film, Mr. Snavely came to the door to answer the now famous sentence

"And it ain't a fit night out for man nor beast"

to pronounce. Thereupon Snavely gets a snowball thrown in the face by the wind, whereby it is consciously clear that someone is throwing it at Mr. Snavely. Once Snavely said about the snow: "It tastes just like corn flakes" ("It tastes like corn flakes "). This alludes to the fact that white-colored corn flakes were used as film snow until the 1940s. Fields also emphasizes the artificiality of the film in other places: In the song Fatal Glass of Beer, which he plays on the zither , the music and the hand movements on the zither rarely match, and he sings wrongly; Several times Fields goes through extremely poor rear projections , which make it clear to the viewer that this film was not shot in Yukon, but in Hollywood. Furthermore, Field relies on surrealist humor, for example, there are two Indians who sit in the Snavely's house and immediately disappear from the plot for no reason, and Fields dips a one-meter-long breadstick into his soup.

reception

The Fatal Glass of Beer was disregarded by critics at the time, but is now considered by many to be the most remarkable short film by WC Fields. Turner Classic Movies called the film a "cheerfully eccentric masterpiece," Allmovie noted that the film was "in many ways" among Fields' best. Even from today's point of view, the "surreal nature of the comedy, aimed at making fun of the exaggerated drama and philosophical ideas of the time, is still convincing."

Bob Dylan quotes the film in the song Lonesome Day Blues on his album "Love and Theft" and sings "the weather's not fit for man or beast!" .

In the military science fiction series Space 2063 , excerpts from the film are shown in the episode “Bacchus”.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Fatal Glass of Beer at Turner Classic Movies
  2. ↑ The Fatal Glass of Beer at Allmovie
  3. ↑ The Fatal Glass of Beer at Turner Classic Movies
  4. ↑ The Fatal Glass of Beer at Turner Classic Movies
  5. ↑ The Fatal Glass of Beer at Allmovie