It's a Gift [Blu-ray]

Director: Norman Z. McLeod Norman Z. McLeod

Overview

In this film, W.C. Fields is in fine fettle as small-town grocer Harold Bissonette. Harold dreams of becoming an orange farmer, but his gorgon wife will have none of it. After a grueling day at the store, however, Harold announces that he's sold the store and bought an orange grove.

Product Details

Release Date:	11/09/2021
UPC:	0738329256548
Original Release:	1934
Rating:	NR
Source:	Kl Studio Classics
Language:	English
Time:	1:08:00

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

W.C. Fields	Harold Bissonette
Baby LeRoy	Baby Dunk
Kathleen Howard	Amelia Bissonette
Jean Rouverol	Mildred Bissonette
Julian Madison	John Durston
Tommy Bupp	Norman Bissonette
Tammany Young	Everett Ricks
Morgan Wallace	Jasper Fitchmueller
Charles Sellon	Mr. Muckle/Blind Man/House Detective
Josephine Whittell	Mrs. Dunk
Diana Lewis	Miss Dunk
T. Roy Barnes	Insurance Salesman
Spencer Charters	Gate Guard
Guy Usher	Harry Payne Bosterly
Jerry Mandy	Vegetable Man
Patsy O'Byrne	Mrs. Frobisher
Edith Kingdon	Old Woman in Limousine
James Burke	Iceman
William H. Tooker	Old Man in Limousine
Budd Fine	Driver
Eddie Baker	Yard Attendant
Chill Wills	Campfire Singer
Jane Withers	Hopscotch Girl
Dell Henderson	Mr. Abernathy
Chill Wills and the Avalon Boys	Campfire Quartet
Buster	Dog

Technical Credits

W.C. Fields

Jack Cunningham

Norman Z. McLeod	Director
W.C. Fields	Screenwriter
William Le Baron	Producer
Jack Cunningham	Screenwriter

Editorial Reviews

Anyone seeking to understand W.C. Fields's humor and screen persona need look no further than Norman Z. McLeod's It's A Gift. The 1934 movie, which was successful but not highly regarded at the time, has become the defining film in the comic's screen career. It's also a very telling comedy about men who are downtrodden in spirit and put-upon by everyone around them, particularly women and children. It's misogynist humor, which is one reason why Fields' comedy, like that of the 1990s television series Married... with Children, is almost entirely a male phenomenon. In It's A Gift, Fields' performance as the common man and hen-pecked husband -- almost an American Andy Capp -- achieved a level of sympathy that he would seldom find in his other, more aggressive, assertive roles. Fields' Harold Bissonette is, or rather, once was, an essentially kind man -- he wants nothing more than peace and quiet to enjoy his meals, family, and home, and wouldn't even mind earning the respect of his wife, if that's what it takes -- but his patience is tried at every turn by some of the most obnoxious supporting players ever to grace a feature film. It's significant that the one and only completely sympathetic character in It's A Gift is Harold's new neighbor, a complete stranger (former filmmaker Dell Henderson) who does Bissonette a good turn without even knowing anything about him. The gesture is an element of the script that suggests, subtly yet profoundly, that there is hope for Harold and the men in Fields' audience like him. Fields never did another movie that was as cleanly executed, neatly constructed, or pleasing -- indeed, by the end of his career, with Never Give a Sucker an Even Break, his barbed humor spun in too many directions at once, evoking a spirit of anarchy but not much sympathy or warmth. (Ironically, this anarchic phase fit in very well with the mood of the late 1960s, when Sucker as well as The Bank Dick and My Little Chickadee were discovered by the counter-culture.) It's a Gift is Fields at his most affecting and funny and, along with his performance as Micawber in George Cukor's David Copperfield, his best work on screen.