W.C. Fields in “The Old Fashioned Way”

July 13 is the anniversary of the release date of the W.C. Fields comedy The Old Fashioned Way (1934), directed by William Beaudine.

This is one of the best movies ever for Fields fans, but also for lovers of vaudeville, trouping and old-time melodrama. Fields plays the Great McGonnigle, leader of a traveling 19^th century theatre troupe, always one step ahead of the sheriff. As he frequently does in his pictures, Fields plays a widower with a daughter (Judith Allen). In this one he romances a local rich widow (Jan Duggan) and gives her a part in his production of The Drunkard and also gives a part to rich young man (Joe Morrison) who is in love with his daughter, thus simultaneously alienating the local sheriff (slated to marry the widow) and the rich boy’s powerful father. Baby LeRoy is the widow’s toddler; the film contains several famous, oft-excerpted scenes of the tot torturing Fields.

There are also a couple of straight musical numbers, which is unusual in a Fields film. Half the movie is given over to the production of The Drunkard followed by rare scenes of Fields re-creating his vaudeville juggling act, making this film doubly invaluable.

Fields as the melodrama villain in “The Drunkard”

In the end, McGonnigle’s tour is cancelled and he pretends to have gotten an offer from New York, so his daughter is able to marry her beau. In a brief epilogue Field is seen hawking patent medicine in the street.

For more on show biz history, consult No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and wherever nutty books are sold.