W.C. Fields and Evelyn Del Rio in The Bank Dick.

The Bank Dick has W.C. Fields playing henpecked Egbert Sousè “accent grave over the e”. He lives with his wife, two daughters and his mother-in-law. His favorite activity is getting sloshed at the local watering hole. However, as fate would have it, one day he gets hired to replace a drunken film director and then - after being falsely believed to have foiled a bank robbery - gets hired as security for the local bank.

All seems to be going well for Egbert until he talks his daughter’s fiancé (a teller at the bank) into “borrowing” $5,000 to invest in some shady stock deal. Of course before he can replace the money a bank examiner shows up. But not to worry. Egbert has a plan to keep the bank examiner out of the way for the next four days until his future son-in-law’s bonus arrives, thus enabling him to repay the money. This plan, by the way, includes taking the bank examiner to the local pub and having Egbert’s bartender friend slip a Mickey Finn into his drink (the bartender, BTW, is played by Shemp Howard of The Three Stooges). All of these shenanigans take up just over an hour of screen time and the story culminates in a high speed slapstick car chase.

W.C. Fields wrote the screenplay under the pseudonym Mahatma Kane Jeeves (“My hat, my cane, Jeeves!” was a stock stage phrase from the era). The script was at first rejected by Universal’s censors but director Edward F. Cline suggested that Fields film it as written, rightly assuming the guys in the front office wouldn’t notice the difference.

Fields had a penchant for bathroom humor and sexual innuendo. In one scene he is asked if he frequents a bar called The Black Pussy. He gets hit in the groin by a swinging office gate. When discussing children with the bank examiner he offhandedly remarks, “I'm very fond of children. Girl children, around eighteen and twenty.” When Egbert brings J. Pinkerton Snoopington to the Black Pussy Café for a drink during business hours, the bank examiner sheepishly asks, “Can't we, eh, pull the shade?” Egbert replies, “You can pull anything you want in here. It's a regular joint.”

Some of the funniest bits involve Field’s interaction with children. He nearly strangles a young boy playing with a toy gun at the bank and displays some inappropriate behavior towards his youngest daughter. At one point the little girl asks, “What's the matter, Pop? Don't you love me?” Egbert raises his hand as if to strike the child and answers, “Certainly I love you!” His wife then interjects, “Don't you dare strike that child!” Egbert then defiantly states, “She's not gonna tell ME I don't love her.”

This movie is far from politically correct. It has an awkward scene with a black man that nearly made me cringe and at one point Fields mentions getting a knife pulled on him by a “colored midget”. Still he created one of the most original and iconic characters of early talking film comedy. W.C. Fields, with his often imitated speaking voice and irascible, curmudgeonly, lush of a personality, was a huge influence on later generations of comics. The Bank Dick is a fine showcase for his unique persona and sublime comic timing.
 

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