Never Give a Sucker an Even Break [What a Man] ***** (1941, W C Fields, Gloria Jean, Leon Errol, Franklin Pangborn, Margaret Dumont ) – Classic Movie Review 7395

Director Edward F Cline’s 1941 comedy Never Give a Sucker an Even Break finds the great W C Fields on superb form as ‘The Great Man’ in this story (written by him as Otis Criblecoblis) about a cynical, hard-drinking conman, setting off for Esoteric Studios trying to sell a screenplay to the producer (Franklin Pangborn), while checking out the Tinseltown lovelies and bidding to wed the formidable Mrs Hemogloben (Margaret Dumont), or perhaps her daughter Ouilotta Delight Hemogloben (Susan Miller).

Even if Fields’s drunken outpourings of a story do not make a lot of sense and the film’s sense of pacing is virtually non-existent, Fields’s priceless one-liners and his performance are utterly treasurable, and there is plenty of great comedy support, not least from Pangborn and Dumont. Gloria Jean’s co-starring role as Gloria is notable in what is the most seen of her movies today.

Also in the cast are Leon Errol, Billy Lenhart, Kenneth Brown, Anne Nagel, Mona Barrie, Charles Lang, Nell O’Day, Irving Bacon, Claude Allister, Leon Belasco, Emil Van Horn, Billy Wayne, Minerva Urecal, Jody Glbert, William Gould, Emmett Vogan, Jack Lipson, Dave Willock, Duke York and Eddie Bruce.

Never Give a Sucker an Even Break [also known as What a Man in the UK] is directed by Edward F Cline, runs 71 minutes, is released by Universal, is shot in black and white by Charles Van Enger, is scored by Frank Skinner, is designed by Jack Otterson, and the screenplay is by John T Neville and Prescott Chaplin, based on a story by W C Fields (as Otis Criblecoblis).

Sadly, it was the booze-afflicted Fields’s final role as a star, though he appeared in four other films.

Edward F Cline also directed Fields’s two previous classics, My Little Chickadee (1940) and The Bank Dick (1940).

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7395

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