October 25 is the release date of the 1926 silent feature So’s Your Old Man (1926) starring W.C. Fields and directed by Gregory La Cava. If you’ve already seen the 1934 talkie You’re Telling Me, then you’ve practically seen So’s Your Old Man — the latter is a remake of the former. The film was based on a story called Mr. Bisbee’s Princess by Julian Leonard Street and revives his famous golf routine, which Fields had devised for sketches in Broadway revues, and had filmed in his 1930 short The Golf Specialist. (To my mind, the vehicle also has more than a little in common with George Kelly’s The Show Off).
In the film, Fields plays a crackpot inventor named Sam Bisbee who has a lot riding on the sale of his latest invention, a shatterproof windshield. In the remake, it is punctureless tires. I’ve always thought this switch is eloquent about the two different kinds of movie, silent vs. talkie. A brick being thrown at a window and the resulting breakage is highly visual: perfect for silent comedy. A tire exploding is highly auditory; great for talkies. (Yes, glass breaking make a great noise, too. But a pop followed by a hiss is probably funnier). When Bisbee’s big presentation to auto executives goes awry, he is ready to call it quits but he is bailed out by a stranger whose life he touched, enabling his daughter to marry into the snobby family of her beau (Buddy Rogers).
To learn more about comedy film history, including the films of W.C. Fields, please check out my new book: Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube, just released by Bear Manor Media, also available from amazon.com etc etc etc.
(Travalanche) 
It is high time that this film be officially released on DVD/BluRay! There could be audio commentary and some nice music, and a lot of fans of Fields and classic film comedy would be glad to buy it.
LikeLike
It is always great to see W. C. Fields. Even though people have written off his silent films as a side issue not worth much attention, we can still see Fields give a fine performance, even without sound. He had interesting mannerisms and great timing for what he did visually in all of his films.
Until this film was finally posted on YouTube, I never had a chance to see it. For some reason, this film appears to never have been officially made available for home viewing, whether on video tape, DVD Blu Ray. The other existing silent films that W. C. Fields starred in, such as “Sally of the Sawdust”, “It’s the Old Army Game” and “Running Wild”, are available, but “So’s Your Old Man” is mysteriously overlooked and unavailable. The only way to see it is to rent a 35mm print from the Library of Congress, or to view it on YouTube.
Does anyone know why this film hasn’t been released, when nearly everything else has been? If it IS available, please post here to tell where it can be found.
LikeLike
Now that it has been announced that Kino will release both “It’s the Old Army Game” and “Running Wild”, maybe there will be enough attention cast on these early Fields films that they will also release “So’s Your Old Man”. A couple of people are selling DVDs of this film, but I’m sure that these are unofficial DVD-R releases.
LikeLike