|
It's
A Gift (1934)
In director Norman Z. McLeod's very funny comedy, about
a small-town grocery clerk who was beset by harrassments from his
children, his nagging wife and customers, who ultimately decided
to pack up his family and belongings into their car for a trip out
West to California to his "orange grove":
- the opening scene of helpless and henpecked Harold
Bissonette (W. C. Fields) suffering in his home due to his shrewish
wife Amelia (Kathleen Howard), and having to share the mirror while
attempting to shave in the home's single bathroom with his prim
daughter Mildred (Jean Rouverol); his shaving arm (precariously
poised with a sharp razor) was continually threatened ("If
you want me to cut my throat, keep that up!")
- the hilarious grocery store sequences (with a number
of slapstick segments and sight gags) involving bumbling, long-suffering
New Jersey store owner Harold and his incompetent store clerk Everett
Ricks (Tammany Young)
- also, Bissonette's eccentric patrons included a disruptive
and grumpy Mr. Jasper Fitchmueller (Morgan Wallace) who kept requesting
"ten pounds of kumquats - and I'm in a hurry", a cantankerous,
blind/deaf and destructive Mr. Muckle (Charles Sellon) - a house-detective
wearing sunglasses and wielding a cane, and Baby Ellwood Dunk (Baby
LeRoy) spreading molasses all over the floor; all the while, Harold
rushed around responding to an increasingly-exasperated Mr. Fitchmueller,
promising: "Coming, coming..."
|
|
|
Mr. Muckle Creating a Path of Destruction
|
- as Muckle approached the store, Bissonette screamed
out to Everett: "Open the door for Mr. Muckle" - knowing
that full-scale destruction of the store was about to happen; unable
to get to the closed front door in time to open it, the irrascible
old Muckle smashed its plate glass window with his wildly waving
cane, shouting out: "You got that door closed again!"
- with an ear trumpet, the hard-of hearing Muckle only
purchased a stick of chewing gum after a prolonged, difficult conversation
with Harold - and then proceeded to destroy a display of light bulbs
that exploded as they dropped to the floor; when leaving the store
after demanding the delivery of the gum, Muckle successfully smashed
the other front door's window on his way out, cheerfully adding: "Well,
you got that door closed again!"
- a later tour-de-force episode: the funny sequence
of the bedeviled Harold's continued attempts to peacefully sleep
on his faulty back porch swing while bothered by a milkman and his
rattling glass milk bottles (Harold requested:
"Please stop playing with those sleigh bells, will ya?"),
a coconut noisily bouncing down the steps, an insurance salesman (T.
Roy Barnes) looking for Carl LaFong, by Baby Dunk dropping grapes on
him ("Right on the proboscis!" and his exclamation: "Shades
of Bacchus!"), a chattering, sing-song repartee-conversation between
young Miss Abby Dunk (Diana Lewis) and her mother about whether she
should buy ipecac or syrup of squill for Baby Dunk, a squeaky clothesline,
and a noisy vegetable/fruit vendor (Jerry Mandy)
- the priceless scene of Harold's conversation with
a salesman named Carl LaFong:
- Salesman: Carl LaFong, Capital L, small a, capital F, small o, small
n, small g. LaFong. Carl LaFong.
- Harold: No. I don't know Carl LaFong - Capital L, small a, Capital
F, small o, small n, small g. And if I did know Carl LaFong, I wouldn't
admit it!
- the entire California trip sequence - Bissonette's
dreamland where he imagined owning an orange grove - including their
family picnic scene (not at a camp or picnic grounds, but on the
private lawn of an exclusive mansion) where they littered everything
with garbage and pillow feathers
|
|
Disastrous Family Picnic Scene
|
Plucking an Orange for His Screwdriver
|
- their arrival at Harold's property - located in
a disaster area - a dessicated section of sunbaked desert land
with a "Tobacco Road" ramshackle shack on it - although
due to good fortune, the worthless land was immediately purchased
by a developer for a race-track and grandstand for a windfall amount
of $44,000!- in the final scene, a triumphant, vindicated and relaxed
Harold was on the porch of his new prosperous property: "Bissonette's
Blue Bird Oranges" where he was mixing screwdriver cocktails
and lazily reaching out and effortlessly plucking an orange from
a nearby lush tree
|
Harold Sharing a Bathroom Mirror with His Daughter Mildred
Customer Demanding Kumquats
The Back Porch Swing Sequence
Interrupted by Salesman Carl LaFong
Packing Up Family for Drive to California
|