Though it has much status in the W.C. Fields filmography, this 1939 Universal Picture was a tense affair behind the scenes: the great comic refused to work with veteran director George Marshall and shot his parts under Edward Cline instead. The result is still Hollywood gold in many ways—and problematic in others, due to some Jim Crow-era gags, of which library collections should be aware.
Larson E. Whipsnade (Fields) runs a ramshackle "Circus Giganticus" one step ahead of pursuing lawmen. Whipsnade cheats his employees almost as much as he does the ticket-buying rubes who come to the show. An especially disgruntled sideshow attraction: "Charlie," ventriloquist-dummy partner of voice-throwing The Great Edgar (Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, of course, frequent radio co-stars with Fields, extending their relationship onto celluloid here). The independent-minded little wooden guy insults and belittles Whipsnade perpetually. Whipsnade responds by throwing Charlie at the alligators.
Meanwhile, Fields' college-student daughter (Constance Moore) visits and realizes how desperately her widowed dad tries to finance an education for her and her brother (Field's original script ideas included a sentimental subplot about Whipsnade's deceased trapeze-artist wife, humanizing the irascible character's devotion to family and circus, but those scenes were never used, to Field's annoyance). She is tempted to marry into the aristocracy for the money, even though she falls in love with Edgar. The finale literally leaves things up in the air (with a guest punchline by Bergen's other dummy character, Mortimer Snerd).
A gag with Charlie McCarthy disguising himself in blackface, plus roustabout Eddie Anderson (before his breakthrough on Jack Benny's show) referred to as the circus' "head Ubangi," probably would get the hook these days more so than an incongruously tragic trapeze death scene. Still, even with those (and Fields' bitterness over the finished film, recorded by Hollywood historians), the hilarity quotient is high, peaking with an uproarious slapstick ping-pong ball match.
Edgar Bergen is fine as well (he would proceed to co-star again with leading lady Constance Moore in Charlie McCarthy, Detective later in 1939), and Kino Lorber's 2K restoration of the feature is a delightful way to remember two icons of 20th-century comedy entertainment.
The main disc extra is a commentary track by movie historian/filmmaker Michael Schlesinger, giving much backstory to the many supporting-role players (and he has a sweet personal remembrance of aged Constance Moore being honored at a revival-festival screening). It takes no carnival flim-flam to persuade any film collections invested in vintage screen classics to put You Can't Cheat on Honest Man on library shelves.