Poppy **** (1936, W C Fields, Rochelle Hudson, Richard Cromwell, Lynne Overman, Catherine Doucet) – Classic Movie Review 9788

Director A Edward Sutherland’s 1936 comedy Poppy finds W C Fields on hilarious form repeating his 1925 filming of his stage hit Sally of the Sawdust as carnival medicine salesman conman Professor Eustace McGargle.

He pretends that his beloved adopted daughter Poppy (Rochelle Hudson) is a missing heiress to gain an inheritance, and she is wooed by the mayor’s son, Billy Farnsworth (Richard Cromwell), while Fields attracts the attentions of a fake countess, Countess Maggi Tubbs DePuizzi (Catherine Doucet).

Admittedly, when the young lovers are on screen, though, the film does take a tumble, but Fields’s scenes are majestic.

Doubles were used for scenes requiring physical exertion when Fields became ill, suffering from both the effects of his heavy drinking and attempts to stop drinking, and then injuring his back while filming.

Waldemar Young and Virginia Van Upp’s screenplay is based on the 1923 stage revue play by Dorothy Donnelly.

Also in the cast are Rochelle Hudson, Richard Cromwell, Lynne Overman, Catherine Doucet, Maude Eburne, Granville Bates, Wade Botelier, Bill Wolfe, Adrian Morris, Rosalind Keit and Tom Herbert.

Professor Eustace McGargle: ‘What a gorgeous day. What effulgent sunshine. Effulgent sunshine. Yes ’twas a day of this sort the McGillicuddy brothers murdered their mother with an axe!’

Professor Eustace McGargle to Poppy: ‘And if we should ever separate, my little plum, I want to give you just one bit of fatherly advice: Never give a sucker an even break!’

The then film critic Graham Greene noted: ‘Mr Fields has never acted better. He wins our hearts simply by the completeness of his dishonesty.’

Poppy is directed by A Edward Sutherland, runs 75 minutes, is  made and released by Paramount Pictures, is written by Waldemar Young and Virginia Van Upp, is shot in black and white by William Mellor, is produced by William LeBaron, is scored by Friedrich Hollaender and Gerard Carbonara, and is designed by Hans Dreier and Bernard Herzbrun.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 9788

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