The Bank Dick

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The Bank Dick (released under the title The Bank Detective in England) is a 1940 comedy film in which W. C. Fields plays a character who trips a bank robber and ends up a security guard as a result. The film was written by Fields, using the alias Mahatma Kane Jeeves ("My hat, my cane, Jeeves!"), and directed by Edward F. Cline. In addition to bank and family scenes, it features Fields pretending to be a film director and ends in a chaotic car chase. Stooge Shemp Howard plays a bartender.

The Bank Dick was Fields' last major role and is considered a classic as Fields works in his trademarked drunken henpecked husband, shrewish wife, disapproving mother-in-law, and savage children with aplomb. The family frequently mentions his smoking while upstairs in his room, a fact which he tries to hide. In one scene, where he comes downstairs and hears them mention his smoking, he uses a quick movement of his lips to "fold" the still-burning cigarette into his mouth so he can walk out unmolested. The film has been deemed "culturally significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.

Quotation

"Take off your hat in the presence of a gentleman." -- Fields to a capped bottle of whiskey.

Fields: "Was I in here last night, and did I spend a 20 dollar bill?"

Shemp: "Yeh!"

Fields: "Boy, is that a load off my mind. (chuckles) I thought I'd lost it!"

"Ten cents a share. Telephone sold for five cents a share. How would you like something better for ten cents a share? If five get you ten, ten will get you twenty. Beautiful home in the country, upstairs and down. Beer flowing through the estate over your grandmother's paisley shawl." -- Fields' jumbled repeating of a con-artist's sales pitch for a "Beefsteak Mine", which by the end of the film turns out to be a sound investment after all, his family adores him, and he lives a life of luxury and everyone lives happily ever after.

Upon hearing that his daughter is dating a bank teller named "Og Ogleby", he remarks, "Og Ogleby; sounds like bubbles in a bathtub!"

External links

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