ThomasJefferson Geronimo

Under discussion:

W.C. Fields and Me  (1976)

I’ve always liked WC Fields, but haven’t seen a lot of him. He’s not on tv too much anymore. The bad biopic WC Fields and Me was on this morning though. I’d heard of it before; I remember it getting a lousy review in an issue of Shock Cinema magazine.

All the bad I’d heard may be for real; I know little about Fields himself, Carlotta Monti, or her claims about him in her memoir. Rod Steiger doesn’t so much play Fields as wear a fake news and do a Fields imitation for 2 hours; it may not be his fault, as the script plays the “stick Fieldsisms in in place of real dialogue” game. I don’t know what to make of Valerie Perrine, who plays Monti; I spent half the movie trying to figure out what I’d seen her breasts in before. (I had to break down & ask the internet; she was Montana Wildhack in the Slaughterhouse-Five movie.) I think I let myself be charmed by her, same as Steiger.

The most godawful meta-moment in the movie: WC Steiger drops a trite & circumstantially inappropriate Fields line during a public quarrel with Monti at Chasen’s; she responds with “Quit hiding behind that cheap vaudevillian delivery!!!”

I kind of hated director Arthur Hiller in the first place, but imdbing him made me realize I’ve seen NONE of his other films. I must associate him with Hollywood schmatlz at it’s worst from his Oscar telecast speeches. He did deliver said schmaltz here, for sure, and the whole thing’s as tonally uneven a movie as I’ve ever seen. I just can’t hate a movie where John “Jack Woltz” Marley plays another studio boss and ATTEMPTS (sometimes less than tastefully) to give Billy Barty a real role.

I feel guilty that I liked this, but I think I did. It might be an awful biopic, but it wasn’t the worst maudlin alcocholism drama I’ve ever seen. If a director with better artsy cred had made this, perhaps Bogdanovich taking Nickelodeon in a darker direction, or it were a modern film where a WC Fields imitator drinks themself to death, I could see it being better thought of.

Under discussion:

O.C. and Stiggs  (1985)

Duck! The Carbine High Massacre  (1999)

I haven't watched OC & Stiggs in a while, and discovered it accidentally in the first place.  But as a fledging Altmaniac, seeing the hate this one gets everywhere I kind of feel a need to defend it.  It's meanly funny at times, and sometimes totally lame.  While you can often accuse Altman, even in his better works, of condescension to his subjects and audience, I think OC & Stiggs is more mature than it's credited for. 

Whether Altman was going for it or not, the film captures the futile (if sometimes actually righteous) anger of teens, the sad bonds of outsider friendship and pending adulthood, and the hyprocrises and prejudices or the "grown-up" world.  The only film I can think of on a similar wavelength is Duck! The Carbine High Massacre (1999), a basically homemade "spoof" of the Columbine Shootings (with Skinemax regular Misty Mundae) which is somehow actually funny and poignant.

OC & Stiggs is no classic, but, accidental though it may be, it has surprising humor and poignance, if you're open-minded and had an odd time of high school.  It is still probably only of interest to hardcore Altmaniacs; the viewer who wanders in expecting wild teen dick & titty joke hijinx will be disapoointed.