W.C. Fields Trailers
W.C. Fields: 6 Short Films TrailerHidden Hollywood II: More Treasures from the 20th Century Fox Vaults TrailerVaudeville Trailer
William Claude Dukenfield was the eldest of five children born to Cockney immigrant James Dukenfield and Philadelphia native Kate Felton. He went to school for four years, then quit to work with his father selling vegetables from a horse cart. At eleven, after many fights with his alcoholic father (who hit him on the head with a shovel), he ran away from home. For a while he lived in a hole in the ground, depending on stolen food and clothing. He was often beaten and spent nights in jail. His first regular job was delivering ice. By age thirteen he was a skilled pool player and juggler. It was then, at an amusement park in Norristown PA, that he was first hired as an entertainer. There he developed the technique of pretending to lose the things he was juggling. In 1893 he was employed as a juggler at Fortescue's Pier, Atlantic City. When business was slow he pretended to drown in the ocean (management thought his fake rescue would draw customers). By nineteen he was billed as "The Distinguished Comedian" and began opening bank accounts in every city he played. At age twenty-three he opened at the Palace in London and played with Sarah Bernhardt at Buckingham Palace. He starred at the Folies-Bergere (young Charles Chaplin and Maurice Chevalier were on the program).
He was in each of the Ziegfeld Follies from 1915 through 1921. He played for a year in the highly praised musical "Poppy" which opened in New York in 1923. In 1925 D.W. Griffith made a movie of the play, renamed Sally of the Sawdust (1925), starring Fields. Pool Sharks (1915), Fields' first movie, was made when he was thirty-five. He settled into a mansion near Burbank, California and made most of his thirty-seven movies for Paramount. He appeared in mostly spontaneous dialogs on Charlie McCarthy's radio shows. In 1939 he switched to Universal where he made films written mainly by and for himself. He died after several serious illnesses, including bouts of pneumonia.
Most Popular W.C. Fields Trailers
Total trailers found: 64
03 March 1933
The prodigal son of a Yukon prospector comes home on a night that "ain't fit for man nor beast."
25 February 1983
Out-takes (mostly from Warner Bros.), promotional shorts, movie premieres, public service pleas, wardrobe tests, documentary material, and archival footage make up this star-studded voyeuristic look at the Golden age of Hollywood during the 30s, 40, and 50.
01 January 1976
A celebration of Hollywood in the 1930s, featuring a compilation of clips from features and newsreels of the era.
07 December 1925
Joan Royle, beautiful but naive model who came from the slums, falls for Fred Ketlar, the leader of a dance band.
01 January 1984
Robert Preston hosts this documentary that shows what people of the 1930s were watching as they were battling the Depression as well as eventually getting ready for another World War.
18 January 1935
A young man journeys from a difficult childhood to maturity, exploring social injustice, personal development, and the complexities of human relationships.
11 June 1928
Wealthy Sam Hunter is approached by scheming Richard Whitehead about investing in oil. There appears to be no oil, and everyone is angry until oil is re-discovered.
17 June 1936
Carny con artist and snake-oil salesman Eustace McGargle tries to stay one step ahead of the sheriff but is completely devoted to his beloved daughter Poppy.
01 November 1997
A film scrapbook, images, phrases from our past, hiding their meanings behind veils. Let's lift those veils, one by one, to find how images, at one time seeming innocent, have revealed, after decades, to have homosexual overtones.
13 January 1928
Footage from the premiere of Charlie Chaplin's 1928 film 'The Circus'.
17 December 1927
Sheriff Ben Holden is in love with hotel owner Madge Malarkey when down-and-out carnival man Gabby Gilfoil shows up hoping to take her for some money.
06 August 1975
Period music, film clips and newsreel footage combined into a visual exploration of the American entertainment industry during the Great Depression.
02 September 1964
Film clips highlight the funniest scenes and brightest comic stars in MGM's history.
15 January 1927
Pa Potter invests four thousand dollars in worthless oil stock. Or is it worthless?
15 December 1931
The wealthy von Wellingens are shocked when the father of their son Fred's fiancée Lia juggles desserts at a formal dinner.
25 October 1926
Gregory La Cava directs this comedy of errors, starring W.C. Fields as a hen-pecked, inebriated inventor who triumphantly creates unbreakable windshield glass while struggling to gain the respect of his social-climbing daughter and nagging wife.
28 July 1933
An inept barber maintains his good-humored optimism in his small town shop despite having a hen-pecking harridan for a wife and a total lack of sartorial skill.
01 January 1982
A collection of bloopers and outtakes from an enormous selection of Hollywood classic productions spanning from the 1930s through the 1980s.
23 June 1933
Bobby Jones is playing golf with his buddies, oblivious to the fact that they are being watched by a drunken juggler.
10 June 1927
Cowardly Elmer Finch is browbeaten by his wife, daughter, fat son and the family dog. After hypnosis he is domineering.
09 August 1994
As the first "blonde bombshell," Mae West reigned supreme and changed the nation's view of women, sex and race — on stage, in films, on radio and television.
10 February 1933
Harold Hobbs doesn't much like that his lazy, sponging and unemployed brother-in-law Claude and his mother-in-law live with him and his wife, Hortense, especially as the in-laws seem to rule the roost ever since they moved in.
01 January 1968
Clips from assorted television programs, B-movies, commercials, music performances, newsreels, bloopers, satirical short films and promotional and government films of the 1950s and 1960s are intercut together to tell a single story of various creatures and societal ills attacking American cities.
31 July 1940
This 1940 presentation features highlights of earlier (1928 onward) Oscar ceremonies including Shirley Temple and Walt Disney, plus acceptance speeches for films released in 1939 with recipients and presenters including Vivien Leigh, Judy Garland, Hattie McDaniel, Fay Bainter, Mickey Rooney, Thomas Mitchell, Sinclair Lewis, and more, with host Bob Hope.
21 April 1933
A henpecked but stoic pharmacist tries to maintain his precarious balance while dealing with demanding customers and his dysfunctional family.
28 October 1934
The Wiggs family plan to celebrate Thanksgiving in their rundown shack with leftover stew, without Mr.
18 December 1933
In Victorian England, a bored young girl dreams that she has entered a fantasy world called Wonderland, populated by even more fantastic characters.
21 June 1944
A beautiful child star tires of life in the spotlight and so disguises herself and sneaks off to join a Civilian Conservation Corps camp to work with normal kids.
30 June 1944
As dancer Ginny Walker performs on stage, a veiled woman in the audience stands up, accuses Ginny of stealing her husband and then fires a gun at her.
05 August 1942
Ten screenwriters collaborated on this series of tales concerning the effect a tailcoat cursed by its tailor has on those who wear it.
22 August 1930
At a Florida hotel, absconding miscreant J. Effingham Bellweather goes slapstick golfing with the house detective's flirtatious wife and an incompetent caddy.
20 July 1999
Second installment of deleted scenes, mostly musical or comedic, from Fox films of the 30's - 50's.
03 March 1928
The ring master is plotting to get the circus owner done away with in a lion cage so he can take over.
03 August 1935
Hard-working, henpecked Ambrose Ambrose Wolfinger takes off from work to go to a wrestling match with catastrophic consequences.
27 May 1933
Foreign investors converge on a luxury hotel in China to bid on a new kind of radioscope. But, this is a hotel where Burns and Allen are the in-house medical staff, a measles risk sends the whole building into quarantine, and a madcap millionaire crashes dinner in his autogyro.
01 August 1925
Judge Foster throws his daughter out because she married a circus man. She leaves her baby girl with Professor McGargle before she dies.
09 February 1940
On her way by stagecoach to visit relatives out west, Flower Belle Lee is held up by a masked bandit who also takes the coach's shipment of gold.
21 May 1943
A multi-studio effort to show the newsreel audience the progress of the Hollywood war effort.
05 May 1944
During World War II, all the studios put out "all-star" vehicles which featured virtually every star on the lot--often playing themselves--in musical numbers and comedy skits, and were meant as morale-boosters to both the troops overseas and the civilians at home.
18 November 1932
An elderly business tycoon, believed to be dying, decides to give a million dollars each to eight strangers chosen at random from the phone directory.
22 March 1935
A young pacifist, after refusing on principle to defend her sweetheart's honor and being banished in disgrace, joins a riverboat troupe as a singer, acquires a reputation as a crackshot after a saloon brawl in which the villain of the piece accidentally kills himself with his own gun, falls in love with his former fianceé's sister and finally bullies an apprehensive family into accepting him.
30 November 1934
After he inherits some money, Harold Bissonette ("pronounced bis-on-ay") decides to give up the grocery business, move to California and run an orange grove.
08 July 1932
A small country on the verge of bankruptcy is persuaded to enter the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics as a means of raising money.
16 May 1976
Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire present more golden moments from the MGM film library, this time including comedy and drama as well as classic musical numbers.
01 August 1949
This film is a compilation, with narration by Steve Allen, of comedies from the old Mack Sennett silent studio.
09 December 1932
An unconventional dentist deals with patients in slapstick fashion.
10 July 1926
Druggist Elmer Prettywillie is sleeping. A woman rings the night bell only to buy a two-cent stamp. Then garbage collectors waken him.
17 February 1939
Fields plays "Larsen E. Whipsnade", the owner of a shady carnival that is constantly on the run from the law.
29 November 1940
Egbert Sousé becomes an unexpected hero when a bank robber falls over a bench he's occupying. Now considered brave, Egbert is given a job as a bank guard.
13 October 1933
Tillie and Augustus Winterbottom are thought to be missionaries when they arrive to find Phineas Pratt trying cheat the Sheridans out of her father's inheritance, including a ferry franchise and a boat.
11 February 1938
The Bellows family causes comic confusion on an ocean liner, with time out for radio-style musical acts.
13 July 1934
The Great McGonigle and his troupe of third-rate vaudevillians manage to stay one step ahead of the bill collectors and the sheriff.
23 March 1979
Glenn Ford narrates this hilarious look back at the greatest comedians in movie history.
09 February 1934
The Whinneys share expenses for their trip to Hollywood with George and Gracie and their great Dane. A clerk in Whinney's bank has put fifty thousand dollars in a suitcase, hoping to rob Whinney on the road, but instead Whinney takes another road and is himself arrested in Nevada.
08 December 1924
It is 1774, the eve of the American War of Independence. Janice comes from a Tory household. She cavorts with American and British alike, is pursued by Charles Fownes, patriot and friend of General Washington.
29 October 1976
Bob's favorite memories and funniest moments on TV The biggest Stars! ... The biggest laughs! On DVD for the first time, this special 90 minute collection proves that laughter is the universal language with a sidesplitting salute to slapstick, satire, sketch comedy and zingers.
19 September 1915
Two romantic rivals play a game of pool for the hand of their lady love. W.C. Field's debut film.
10 October 1941
Never Give a Sucker an Even Break is a 1941 film about a man who wants to sell a film story to Esoteric Studios.
06 April 1934
Sam Bisbee is an inventor whose works (e.g., a keyhole finder for drunks) have brought him only poverty.
01 January 1990
Welcome behind the closed doors of a Hollywood that only a select few will ever get to see -- a Hollywood of tragic lives and tragic deaths.
