W.C. Fields and Me is a 1976 American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 biographical film

Biographical film

A biographical film, or biopic , is a film that dramatizes the life of an actual person or people. They differ from films “based on a true story” or “historical films” in that they attempt to comprehensively tell a person’s life story or at least the most historically important years of their...

 directed by Arthur Hiller

Arthur Hiller

Arthur Hiller, OC is a Canadian film director. His filmography includes 33 major studio releases, including the 1970 film Love Story...

 and starring Rod Steiger

Rod Steiger

Rodney Stephen "Rod" Steiger was an Academy Award-winning American actor known for his performances in such films as On the Waterfront, The Big Knife, Oklahoma!, The Harder They Fall, Across the Bridge, The Pawnbroker, Doctor Zhivago, In the Heat of the Night, and Waterloo as well as the...

 and Valerie Perrine

Valerie Perrine

- Life and career :Perrine was born in Galveston, Texas, the daughter of Winifred , a dancer who appeared in Earl Carroll's Vanities, and Kenneth Perrine, a Lieutenant Colonel in the US Army. Owing to her father's career, Perrine lived in many locations as the family moved to different...

. The screenplay

Screenplay

A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...

 by Bob Merrill

Bob Merrill

Bob Merrill was an American songwriter, theatrical composer, lyricist, and screenwriter.Merrill was born Henry Merrill Levan in Atlantic City, New Jersey and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Following a stint with the Army during World War II, he moved to Hollywood, where he worked as a...

 is based on a memoir

Memoir

A memoir , is a literary genre, forming a subclass of autobiography – although the terms 'memoir' and 'autobiography' are almost interchangeable. Memoir is autobiographical writing, but not all autobiographical writing follows the criteria for memoir set out below...

 by Carlotta Monti

Carlotta Monti

Carlotta Monti was an American film actress who was also the mistress of W. C. Fields.Born Carlotta Montijo in Los Angeles, California, Monti appeared in B-movies like Kiss of Araby , Tarzan the Fearless and Night Cargo , usually cast as an exotic temptress...

, mistress of W.C. Fields for the last 14 years of his life.

Synopsis

The story begins in 1924 in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, where W.C. Fields is a Ziegfeld Follies

Ziegfeld Follies

The Ziegfeld Follies were a series of elaborate theatrical productions on Broadway in New York City from 1907 through 1931. They became a radio program in 1932 and 1936 as The Ziegfeld Follies of the Air....

 headliner, and ends with his 1946 death in California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

 at age 66. In between, it dramatizes his life and career with emphasis on the latter part of both, when the "Me" of the title played a prominent role, with a number of fiction

Fiction

Fiction is the form of any narrative or informative work that deals, in part or in whole, with information or events that are not factual, but rather, imaginary—that is, invented by the author. Although fiction describes a major branch of literary work, it may also refer to theatrical,...

alized events added for dramatic impact.

Having lost his girlfriend Melody to another man and most of his life savings due to careless investments by his broker, Fields heads west to Santa Monica

Santa Mônica

Santa Mônica is a town and municipality in the state of Paraná in the Southern Region of Brazil.-References:...

, where he operates a wax museum

Wax museum

A wax museum or waxworks consists of a collection of wax sculptures representing famous people from history and contemporary personalities exhibited in lifelike poses....

 until he's offered a film role. He quickly becomes a major screen presence and a notorious drinker.

While at a party with his friends John Barrymore

John Barrymore

John Sidney Blyth , better known as John Barrymore, was an acclaimed American actor. He first gained fame as a handsome stage actor in light comedy, then high drama and culminating in groundbreaking portrayals in Shakespearean plays Hamlet and Richard III...

, Gene Fowler

Gene Fowler

Gene Fowler was an American journalist, author and dramatist.He was born in Denver, Colorado. When his mother remarried, young Gene took his stepfather's name to become Gene Fowler. Fowler's career had a false start in taxidermy, which he later claimed permanently gave him a distaste for red meat...

 and restaurant owner Dave Chasen

Chasen's

Chasen's was a restaurant in West Hollywood, California that was a hangout for entertainment luminaries. Located at 9039 Beverly Boulevard near Beverly Hills, it was the site of the Academy Awards party for many years and was also known for its chili. In 1962 Liz Taylor had several orders of...

, Fields is introduced to starlet Carlotta Monti, whom he hires as a live-in secretary

Secretary

A secretary, or administrative assistant, is a person whose work consists of supporting management, including executives, using a variety of project management, communication & organizational skills. These functions may be entirely carried out to assist one other employee or may be for the benefit...

. In order to stifle her theatrical aspirations, he arranges a screen test

Screen test

A screen test is a method of determining the suitability of an actor or actress for performing on film and/or in a particular role. The performer is generally given a scene, or selected lines and actions, and instructed to perform in front of a camera to see if they are suitable...

. The studio boss Harry Bannerman decides she has some talent, but Fields threatens to quit Paramount Pictures

Paramount Pictures

Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...

 unless she's discouraged from pursuing a career in films. When she learns the truth, Carlotta leaves him and goes to New York.

When Barrymore passes away, she returns to Hollywood to comfort Fields. On the set of My Little Chickadee

My Little Chickadee

My Little Chickadee is a Universal comedy/western motion picture starring Mae West and W. C. Fields, with Joseph Calleia, Ruth Donnelly, Margaret Hamilton, Donald Meek, Willard Robertson, Dick Foran, George Moran, William B. Davidson, and Addison Richards. It was directed by Edward F. Cline...

, she learns why her efforts to get him to marry her have routinely been rebuffed: his first marriage has never been dissolved legally. Although hurt by the revelation, Carlotta resigns herself to a life of unwedded bliss that often crumbles into sorrow and frustration as the relentlessly mean-spirited Fields continues to drink heavily and his health steadily declines. The comic is hospitalized and, after enduring great physical pain, dies on Christmas Day, a holiday he had despised with a passion.

Production notes

The Pacific Electric Railway

Pacific Electric Railway

The Pacific Electric Railway , also known as the Red Car system, was a mass transit system in Southern California using streetcars, light rail, and buses...

 car used in the film had been saved from the scrap heap, refitted with an internal combustion engine

Internal combustion engine

The internal combustion engine is an engine in which the combustion of a fuel occurs with an oxidizer in a combustion chamber. In an internal combustion engine, the expansion of the high-temperature and high -pressure gases produced by combustion apply direct force to some component of the engine...

, rubber tires, and a steering mechanism, and used in several period films

Period piece

-Setting:In the performing arts, a period piece is a work set in a particular era. This informal term covers all countries, all periods and all genres...

 set in Los Angeles

Los Ángeles

Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

 prior to its appearance in this film. In 2001 it was refurbished to operate on a rail line serving San Pedro, California.

Principal cast

• Rod Steiger
  Rod Steiger
  Rodney Stephen "Rod" Steiger was an Academy Award-winning American actor known for his performances in such films as On the Waterfront, The Big Knife, Oklahoma!, The Harder They Fall, Across the Bridge, The Pawnbroker, Doctor Zhivago, In the Heat of the Night, and Waterloo as well as the...
  
   ..... W.C. Fields
• Valerie Perrine
  Valerie Perrine
  - Life and career :Perrine was born in Galveston, Texas, the daughter of Winifred , a dancer who appeared in Earl Carroll's Vanities, and Kenneth Perrine, a Lieutenant Colonel in the US Army. Owing to her father's career, Perrine lived in many locations as the family moved to different...
  
   ..... Carlotta Monti
• Jack Cassidy
  Jack Cassidy
  John Joseph Edward “Jack” Cassidy was an American actor of stage, film and screen.His frequent professional persona was that of an urbane, super-confident egotist with a dramatic flair, much in the manner of Broadway actor Frank Fay...
  
   ..... John Barrymore
• John Marley
  John Marley
  John Marley was an American actor who was known for his role as Phil Cavalleri in Love Story and as Jack Woltz— the defiant film mogul who awakens to find the severed head of his prized horse in his bed—in The Godfather...
  
   ..... Bannerman
• Bernadette Peters
  Bernadette Peters
  Bernadette Peters is an American actress, singer and children's book author from Ozone Park, Queens, New York. Over the course of a career that has spanned five decades, she has starred in musical theatre, films and television, as well as performing in solo concerts and recordings...
  
   ..... Melody
• Dana Elcar
  Dana Elcar
  Dana Elcar was an American television and movie character actor. Although he appeared in about 40 films, his most memorable role was on the 1980s and 1990s television series MacGyver as Peter Thornton, an administrator working for the Phoenix Foundation...
  
   ..... Dockstedter
• Paul Stewart
  Paul Stewart (actor)
  Paul Stewart was an American character actor known for his tough, guttural voice. He frequently portrayed villains and mobsters throughout his lengthy career....
  
   ..... Florenz Ziegfeld
• Billy Barty
  Billy Barty
  Billy Barty was an American film actor.-Biography:Barty, an Italian American, was born William John Bertanzetti in Millsboro, Pennsylvania...
  
   ..... Ludwig
• Allan Arbus
  Allan Arbus
  Allan Arbus is an American actor notable for his role as psychiatrist Dr. Sidney Freedman on the television series M*A*S*H.-Early life:...
  
   ..... Gregory LaCava
• Milt Kamen
  Milt Kamen
  Milton Kaminsky , better known as Milt Kamen, was an American stand-up comic and actor with numerous television credits.Born in Hurleyville, New York, Kamen began his career as a regular on Caesar's Hour in 1954...
  
   ..... Dave Chasen
• Louis Zorich
  Louis Zorich
  Louis Zorich is an American actor. He is well-known for his portrayal of Paul Reiser's father "Burt Buchman" in the NBC series Mad About You. He played the role from 1993 to 1999.-Life and career:...
  
   ..... Gene Fowler
• Andrew Parks
  Andrew Parks
  Andrew Lawrence Parks is an American film and television actor.Born in Los Angeles, California to actors Larry Parks and Betty Garrett, Andrew Parks made his film debut at the age of eleven but did not continue his acting career for another eight years, beginning with The Strawberry Statement in...
  
   ..... Claude Fields
• Dennis Alwood ..... Edgar Bergen

Principal production credits

• Producer
  Film producer
  A film producer oversees and delivers a film project to all relevant parties while preserving the integrity, voice and vision of the film. They will also often take on some financial risk by using their own money, especially during the pre-production period, before a film is fully financed.The...
  
   ..... Jay Weston
• Original Music
  Film score
  A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film, forming part of the film's soundtrack, which also usually includes dialogue and sound effects...
  
   ..... Henry Mancini
  Henry Mancini
  Henry Mancini was an American composer, conductor and arranger, best remembered for his film and television scores. He won a record number of Grammy Awards , plus a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award posthumously in 1995...
  
  
• Cinematography
  Cinematography
  Cinematography is the making of lighting and camera choices when recording photographic images for cinema. It is closely related to the art of still photography...
  
   ..... David M. Walsh
• Production Design
  Production designer
  In film and television, a production designer is the person responsible for the overall look of a filmed event such as films, TV programs, music videos or adverts. Production designers have one of the key creative roles in the creation of motion pictures and television. Working directly with the...
  
   ..... Robert F. Boyle
  Robert F. Boyle
  Robert Francis Boyle was an American film art director and production designer.Born in Los Angeles, Boyle trained as an architect, graduating from the University of Southern California . When he lost his job in that field during the Great Depression, Boyle found work in films as an extra...
  
  
• Costume Design
  Costume design
  Costume design is the fabrication of apparel for the overall appearance of a character or performer. This usually involves researching, designing and building the actual items from conception. Costumes may be for a theater or cinema performance but may not be limited to such...
  
   ..... Edith Head
  Edith Head
  Edith Head was an American costume designer who won eight Academy Awards, more than any other woman.-Early life and career:...
  
  , Bill Jobe

Critical reception

In his review in the New York Times, Vincent Canby

Vincent Canby

Vincent Canby was an American film critic who became the chief film critic for The New York Times in 1969 and reviewed more than 1000 films during his tenure there.-Life and career:...

 called the film "dreadful" and added, "It holds up a wax dummy of a character intended to represent the great misanthropic comedian and expects us to feel compassion but only traps us in embarrassment . . . the movie needn't have been quite as brainless as it is. That took work. First off, Bob Merrill . . . has supplied a screenplay that originally may have been meant as the outline for a musical

Musical theatre

Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...

. It exhibits a tell-tale disregard for facts and the compulsion to make a dramatically shapeless life fit into a two-act form . . . Then there's Arthur Hiller, a director who makes intelligent films when the material is right . . . and terrible ones when the writers fail. Most prominent in the mess is Rod Steiger, who . . . reads all of his lines with the monotonous sing-song manner used by third-rate nightclub comics doing Fields imitations. He also speaks most of them out of the corner of his mouth as if he'd had a stroke

Stroke

A stroke, previously known medically as a cerebrovascular accident , is the rapidly developing loss of brain function due to disturbance in the blood supply to the brain. This can be due to ischemia caused by blockage , or a hemorrhage...

."

TV Guide

TV Guide

TV Guide is a weekly American magazine with listings of TV shows.In addition to TV listings, the publication features television-related news, celebrity interviews, gossip and film reviews and crossword puzzles...

awarded it three out of a possible four stars with the comment, "Though the great comedian would have hated this film [and Fields purists undoubtedly will be outraged with the many inaccuracies in it], this movie biography . . . has a certain appeal thanks to Steiger's handling of the lead role . . . Rather than ape Fields, [he] creates his own interpretation of the man, capturing subtle nuances that create a better-rounded character."

Time Out London calls it a "witless biopic [that] leaps through pseudo-history with cretinous inaccuracy. Sloppily slung together, hell-bent on wringing hearts with the drama of the last, lonely, drink-sodden years, it can't get even the simplest facts straight, and doesn't do much of a job on the tear-jerking either . . . Steiger makes a brave stab at the part, but the reality and genius of Fields never get a look in."

External links

• W.C. Fields and Me at the Internet Movie Database