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Sunday, Sep 2, 1979
5:45 PM
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Sunday, Sep 2, 1979
8:15PM
The Dentist, The Fatal Glass of Beer & The Barber Shop
Three of the four classic Mack-Sennett-produced shorts from 1932-33.
In The Dentist (1932, 20 mins, Directed by Leslie Pearce), Fields performs his famous Vaudeville golfing routine before getting back to the office to attend to the dental requirements of two female patients in an hysterically funny sequence.
The Fatal Glass of Beer (1933, 19 mins, Directed by Clyde Bruckman) was poorly received by exhibitors in 1933 (“two reels of film and 20 minutes wasted” --J.E.Weber, Princess Theatre, Chelsea, Michigan, as printed in the Motion Picture Herald), but has endured as one of the great stoned comedies of all time, a semi-surreal burlesque--in the tradition of “The Drunkard”-- on the old-time “mellerdrammer,” featuring Fields as a snowed-in Yukon hunter, singing the song of the fatal glass of beer, and the boy who was lured by temptation in the big city!
In The Barber Shop (1933, 22 mins, Directed by Arthur Ripley), Fields spends a typical day at the chair, walking the tightrope between his beastly wife (a vegetarian!) and pretty manicurist, playing his bass fiddle (called “Lena”), and explaining to one customer the presence of a small dog beside his chair-- “It's a funny thing about that dog. One day I was shaving a man and cut his ear off, and the dog got it. Been back here ever since.”
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