W.C. Fields - The Golf Specialist PUBLIC DOMAIN

[@befdoglover1]

"Now stand clear and keep your eye on the ball!" I use that line now.

[@sangielissa]

Everything WC does is brilliant.The hilarity is a given. He was an impeccable dresser and credits his mother for giving him the "creative" use of his little side quips. Fields said his mother would do that all the time, in real life. Someone would walk by, she would say, "Oh, hi, hello and how's the family? (etc)" and after the person passed, she would always have something to say about them under her breath. Some were seething, but always true and he made it a comedic classic.

[@justingardenhour9503]

I'm 36 and have watched these shorts over and over. WC Three Stooges Chaplin Abbot and Costello Laurel and Hardy Marx Brothers Max and Buddy....just doesn't get any better.

[@ronbaker3677]

He never does hit the ball

[@Truthist1776]

"Hello, little boy." "Can you give me a dollar?" "Oh, it's a little girl."

[@pacmanindy]

I love WC Fields! Especially his hilarious golf sketches!

[@thehoundz1]

Humphrey Poodlewhistle...love it!

[@gocygo63]

...the opening outdoor "second unit shot" of the lush country club...wonder where this is, & if it's still there today?

[@susieQ128]

Love WC he was so so funny... love all the mumbling and cracks he makes. He said his mother did the same thing.

[@emjee]

"I've never struck a woman in my life. Not even my own mother!" LOL!!

[@jeromemyers1820]

WC Fields was a Genius! My Favorite Comic of All Time 😄👍.

[@richardbrittain5449]

According to imdb, the woman walking the dog (a borzoi I think) was Harriet MacGibbon, better known as Mrs. Drysdale in "The Beverly Hillbillies"

[@bobbyfrancis8957]

She's THAT old?

[@premanadi]

@@bobbyfrancis8957 That show was made about 30 years after this, so it seems about right. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harriet_MacGibbon

[@chazdad]

A true master of comedy.

[@waderaney7]

Great thanks 4 this comedy

[@dariowiter3078]

It's amazing how "frustratingly" funny W.C. can be when it comes to stuff like trying to hit a golf ball, a sport he played exceedingly well in real life. =)

[@polaroyds]

"Revealing the facts of life to an indian." This man is the greatest comedian ever!

[@cfchh1905]

Best sketch ever - thanks for posting it. :-)

[@jsamc]

" A knuckle massage " LOL !!

[@guildx700]

best of the best! Thanks Bill!!!!

[@Camouflage7734]

"Stand clear, keep your eye on the ball!" Best quote ever! XD

[@vonbontee]

All together now: "Now stand clear and keep your eye on the ballll!"

[@begs54]

Gotta love Fields.. Fileds: How old are you? Little Girl: 5 years old. Will you give a dollar for my bank? Fileds: I'll give you a dollar if you sing for me. Little Girl: Give me the dollar first, then I'll sing for you.. Fields: Your older then 5 years with that answer, Scram, get away!!!

[@user-qg2uf8jp3h]

Is that "The Wolfman" (Lon Chaney Jr.) the Sailor at 2:10 ?

[@Red23165]

Great love WC Fields

[@dontguessatme]

His delivery will never be matched...

[@Grellman]

The way he reacts to people walking into him is just priceless! 8:50

[@coolseeker]

"Stand clear, keep your eye on the ball." Got it. Now where's that Tiger Woods.

[@jimjazz9135]

when I was a child I slipped and fell on some ice on my way to church and I couldn't move my legs for at least 6 months I had doctor's coming over to the house to tend to me I laid on the couch constantly and I watched WC Fields Abbott and Costello The Three Stooges and Warner Brothers Bugs Bunny characters and I'll tell you what it made it all parable

[@jimjazz9135]

What I meant to say was it made it all bearable

[@johnnyb4187]

Fields was having a little fun with the hat sizes back then on that caddy.

[@Grellman]

"A pint yes, but a pie never... Its like carrying...like carrying...something or other....somewhere" Fucking love that line!

[@Hapmorii]

Me too. I especially like how he draws it out.

[@gplito]

At 3:55 he says''...telegrams,radio,television''. This was in 1930, where was there television?

[@Mr22thou]

+gplito - Television existed in experimental forms when this was made (1930), tho commercial television didn't come till the late 40's.

[@republicucksnowflake1914]

You could see these at movie houses. Even when I was a kid in the late 50's we'd go to the show and stay all day for 20 cents. Shorts, cartoons, more shorts, then the movie, intermission, a short, cartoon or two, then ANOTHER MOVIE!

[@premanadi]

The slightly later WC Fields film, International House, has an entire subplot about television.

[@derby1884]

06:00....may just be the greatest line in the history of comedy!

[@marylawson6060]

Fields made 3 or 4 skits about golf where paper was involved. This was funny. The first one I saw was on a tee with caddy and a woman but there wasn't any dialog. Not one word just the noise of the paper. I never laughed so hard and haven't seen it since.

[@windstorm1000]

the film quality is superb--I thought higher grain film did not come along till about '38!!

[@tr0llaccount]

"i've never struck a woman in my life, not even my own mother!"

[@flo15jo]

J. Effington Bellweather ..... four-flushing horse collar .... knuckle massage ..... Deep Sea McGurk,alias the Slaughterhouse Kid. My god, I think you can keep your F. Scott Fitzgerald. Fields was a [extended string of expletives deleted] genius.

[@beastquake088-fa9]

My teacher show us this it's hilarious

[@love4lust7301]

Failure to pay installments on a straight jacket 🤣🤣

[@susieQ128]

he was sooo funny.

[@zayn_zr9586]

WOW Nice

[@susieQ128]

and all the funny names he came up with... J. Effington Bellweather... ha ha

[@UrbanDKaye]

Things rarely ended well for Fields' straw boaters. They musta had a stack of backups.

[@markrubin9449]

O.K. So you can't cheat an honest man. But you sure can make him laugh hysterically. James Curtis bio on Fields is a must read. Fields films should be re-released in theaters.

[@jaxnean2663]

W.C.Fields is unique. The caddie reminds me of Buster Keaton!

[@dbc7772011]

Golf starts at 8:48

[@prchristman]

For some reason, the tall man in the party the house detective's wife tries to join has a few bandages on his face (see 1:56). Did that house detective find him flirting with his wife? This film is a favorite of mine, and is the earliest recording of Fields's unique voice that I can think of.

[@prchristman]

+gibwise This had to be to show the house detective got rough with the guys in bandages and slings. (What did the wives of these two injured guys say?) The party the guys were a part of (including the injured guys' wives?) clearly knew all about this flirting wife. And look what the detective did to the poor guy at 1:09. Any of that, and I'd be in bandages and a sling for a year!

[@seeharvester]

"I've seen enough dear." 19:30

[@maybrook1]

"You little sissy!"

[@michaelbrinkers1145]

09:03

[@christennant8690]

A pint, yes but a pie, never.

[@ozzie-sk9dh]

Sheer elegance

[@SladeBarker]

He reshot the golf routine, which was his vaudeville act, for his little-known but very funny feature film You're Telling Me. I actually prefer that version.

[@emjee]

Oh not I. I think this version is much funnier. This one has funnier dialogue (which has been omitted in the newer version) also the newer version doesnt have the other characters walking by.

[@klookmopify]

Wc is the best

[@emjee]

If anyone knows the name of the guy who plays guy who plays "Deep Sea McGurk" AKA The Slaughterhouse Kid please post it here. I was watching "The Thin Man" with William Powell today and he was one of the party guests.

[@inkyguy]

@Gib wise, you can find it on IMDb.

[@fredbarkley]

Now stand clear, and keep Your eye on the ball!

[@fleetcomm1]

I was raised on these old comedies but now when I watch someI see that many of the bits go on way too long. Starting at 9:00 mark it’s just him trying to putt one ball and that goes on for 7 minutes before the plot changes.

[@premanadi]

That's the point. It's the slow burn.

[@inuyashason81]

Now stand there and keep your eye on the ball

[@MyoclonicJerkCough]

In one of the circles of Hell, everyone's voice sounds like 5:09. Cripes!

[@purecolrartist]

I was looking for the clip where he got so angry that he threw his whole bag of golf clubs in the lake...

[@threepot5874]

purecolrartist think its the dentist sketch?

[@whiskeyriver4322]

The only problem with this sketch, is that it was repeated many times in other features and shorts..........which got pretty old after a while....... this was the first one with sound.

[@coystrill]

I tried to convince my girlfriend the caddy was played by a young Al Pacino.

[@inkyguy]

That’s Allen Wood (1906 - 1984). He was about 23 when he did this. He and Fields were friends.

[@garyvoid42]

Anyone remember which film W.C. Fields said " Go away or I'll kill ya?"

[@lLoveCarolCleavland]

It's amazing how sexual his skits were back then, especially the one where he played a dentist. The women looked incredible back then.

[@cdream5414]

He was wanted for "telling the facts of life to an Indian" haha

[@lucabrasi8115]

The woman with the afghan hound is Mrs Dryesdale of beverly hillbillies

[@Sleepwalker1977]

12:45 - here's your overcoat!

[@klookmopify]

A knuckle massage

[@olivercalloway1050]

still he was & is one of the funniest cat to Bust. a phat ass joke. and he stayed on the. toe up. always high

[@strawmanii430]

Whe he comes in to his first scene asking if there are any radiograms, telegrams, letters, televisions. Televisions?!?!?? I'm really surprised after reading through all the comments here no one, not one person picked up on that!! This was in the early 30's, waay before televisions were even in the common lexicon of society. I really thought that was weird that he said that word even and think it even weirder that no one else noticed it but it goes to prove my belief that 99.9% of people are unobservant oafs and morons!!!! That's the truth my little chickadee!

[@johnkennard6895]

According to Taylor's bio he did a television joke in International House (involving shooting Rudy Vallee on-screen, who falls after the shot). I've wondered about that too.

[@Marathonracer]

StrawmanII Apparently you're including yourself as one of the " unobservant oafs and morons!!!," because you didn't get his line straight ( which was critical to the joke) and because Bell Telephone Laboratories had given a dramatic demonstration of mechanical television on April 7, 1927, which was newsworthy because it was so historically important. Subjects of the telecast included Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover. Television historian Albert Abramson explained the significance of the Bell Labs demonstration: "It was in fact the best demonstration of a mechanical television system ever made to this time. It would be several years before any other system could even begin to compare with it in picture quality." Fields actually said...."Any telegrams, cablegrams, radios, televisions?" and the term television had certainly been in the news by 1930, when this film was made and the concept of "visual radio" was already known, which is why he said...."radios, televisions?" and why his exact line was the joke. Fields' genius was that every single word was there for a reason. To just paraphrase him and leave "radios" out destroys the joke, because "televisions" only made sense in the context of "radios". Do you really think Fields would use a joke like that if nobody got it? In 1928, WRGB then W2XB was started as world's first television station. It broadcast from the General Electric facility in Schenectady, NY. It was popularly known as "WGY Television". This film wasn't made until 1930 in Fort Lee, New Jersey ( not far from New York) and the term "television" certainly had been in the news. The joke, of course, was that "televisions" wouldn't be left for him any more than "radios" would be and if anything, much less so, because nobody had them yet! It was a typical Fields "inside joke" including televisions along with radios, implying "visual radio" and people in the know got it.

[@godfreecharlie]

Thank you for saving me the time of attempting to elucidate the less informed and unenlightened person that posted his ignorance.

[@Hapmorii]

They had a television in the 1938/39 worlds fair. But this was shot much earlier.

[@cfchh1905]

4 people don´t like this wonderful movie - so that´s number of folks, who walk to the celler to have a laugh.

[@puskascat]

No wonder the Catholic League of Decency stuck its nose into films with that arse joke. 'It really is something to be proud of.'

[@teetime3105]

10:18

[@Liberalbeaststl]

Well Lilian you don't know good humor do you.

[@MultiMrfalcon]

Then you really don't laugh enough in life and take things way to serious. This has nothing to do with the drug addicts, alcoholics and losers you see on skid row.

[@Stroheim333]

The caddy should be funny, if it wasn't for this: the ragged clothes and the empty face and eyes -- this is a man from lowest skid row. Very crude to make a joke out of that.

[@MultiMrfalcon]

Get a sense of humor. God knows you need one to get through the Obama economy.

[@rbbonotto]

now THAT'S funny

[@teetime3105]

10:52