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The Bank Dick - Criterion Collection

The Bank Dick - Criterion Collection

List Price: $29.95
Your Price: $26.96
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The Bank Dick
Review: A classic. Absolutely great. W.C. Field's best feature. He is a liar, a coward, a drunk and a bully. Tons of one-liners and physical humor. One of the ten funniest movies of all time. And one of the last great comedies ever made. Shemp Howard is in this too, as an added bonus!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Bank Dick
Review: A must see for any W C fields fan, from a have not to a have a lot; a story of a henpecked husband whose family love to hate, many of the usual gags from previous films, sub plots see Fields try to sidetrack a bank auditor until an "unofficial" loan can be repaid which opens the door for lots of mischief,drinking and a mighty hangover, when Fields ends up wealthy due to rewards for capturing bank crooks ("pulled a knife on me this long, actually it was an assagai (spear!)the other one?, there was two of them?, oh he went away!") see the family finaly turn like worms! into loving relatives

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Very funny movie
Review: A very, very funny movie. Fields is at his best as a incompetent drunk who twice (by shear accident) becomes a hero. His family is a nightmare. The video transfer is perfect. A real treat if you are a Fields fan.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Not the best from W.C. Fields
Review: Although this movie is often held up as one of Fields's best, I can't say that I found it anywhere near as funny or consistent as his best work. In his earlier films, the jokes (some of the same ones seen here) were fresher, and the plotlines much better paced. This movie lacks the mayhem and surreal nature of my favorite Fields movie--Million Dollar Legs--and the more-sympathetic portrayal of the misunderstood Fields that is at the heart of my other favorites: It's a Gift and You're Telling Me.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Sync problems on "The Bank Dick" DVD
Review: Buyers beware! I Purchased The Criterion Collection DVD of "The Bank Dick" and found the video and sound to be both excellent - except that about halfway through the film the sound and video go several frames out of sync and remain that way through to the end. This unfortunate defect ruins what is otherwise an excellent transfer. I hope Criterion corrects this and does a reissue soon.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Dated, but amusing movie. Not one of his best.
Review: Contrary to most reviews, this is not Fields' best movie. The pacing is slow, the humor often racist and offensive by modern standards. (Drunk-jokes wear thin after a while). If you are a film buff, you should own it. If you are not, you can do better. ("My Little Chick-a-Dee" is funnier) END

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: WILLIAM CLAUDE DUNKENFIELD
Review: Fields wrote the screenplay (using an alias) and stars in this zany comedy about a man who accedentally trips a bank robber and winds up as a guard. Field's last major role is a classic, a worthy end to his great career. Side two of the laserdisc is in CAV format, which allows single frame access to the frenetic cops and robbers chase sequence. The sparkling supporting cast includes Cora Witherspoon, Una Merkel, Jessie Ralph, Franklin Pangborn and Shemp Howard.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: NO synch problems on Criterion DVD
Review: First of all, this is one of the funniest movies ever made. There is not one scene that isn't hillarious. As for one reviewer's comment that the sound and picture are out of synch, this is almost certainly a problem with the player's DSP chip (see Sound & Vision magazine's article on this; Sony knows all about it).

The Bank Dick stands tall, even amongst Fields' other brilliant movies, You're Telling Me and the sensational Its A Gift. Our hero, Egbert Souse (pronounced "Sue-Say") has a Married With Children existence--until he accidentally foils a bank robbery.

The Bank Dick has my all time favorite Fields line: J. Frothingham Waterbury, a stock swindler, says "I want to show you I'm honest in the worst way!".

Fields also paints a less than flattering picture of miserly bankers, the rich, and people who only treat you well when you have money. What makes this so funny, of course, is, its mostly true!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Hillarious and weird.
Review: I enjoyed this film for both it's dynamic comic spirit as well as it's dynamic non-linear avante-gardists leanings as well. W.C Fields in a thoroughly contemporary ,and in someways revelatory, performance offers his own distinct views on alcoholism, misogyny, and capitalism in a manner that exceeds the confines of 1940 and perhaps even more astonishing 2000. A poet and a genuine romantic.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: W.C. Fields is too funny...
Review: I've always been a big fan of W.C. Fields and I've always been disappointed in the quality (and quantity) of his work that is available. With the 6 short films, Criterion is doing a great job of preserving W.C. Fields for future generations.

I wouldn't argue that some of his other films (such as "Never give a sucker...") are better than "The Bank Dick", but they're not available on DVD (let alone after being restored as this film has been).

I won't rehash the plot, except to say that the notion of a petty criminal always keeping one step ahead from being found out is continually repeated and nobody did it better than Fields. A big part of the enjoyment of watching Field's movies is to find out how he lands on his feet. Field's survives in his world like a cat; with grace and only barely acknowledging what has been going on around him.


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