Following a 1930s trend, the great W.C. Fields did a “talkie” remake for Paramount of one of his silent-era hits, the 1926 feature So’s Your Old Man (which has actually been shot at the Astoria Studios of New York, based on a popular Jazz Age short story Mr. Bisbee’s Princess, by Julian Street). Fields specialists tend to regard this sound version, directed by Erle C. Kenton (far from his eerie work on Island of Lost Souls) as a superior item, even offering the curmudgeon comic a few touching screen moments, in between slapstick bits.
Small-town inventor and tippler Sam Bisbee (Fields) is an eccentric to his snooty neighbors in Crystal Springs, but he believes his newfangled puncture-proof tire will gain him entry into their higher social circles – thus smoothing the path for a cherished Bisbee daughter to marry a wealthy boyfriend (a throwaway role for Olympics-swimmer-turned-action star Larry `Buster’ Crabbe). But local police accidentally sabotage Bisbee’s make-or-break presentation to auto executives. Fleeing town in disgrace via the railroad and intending suicide, Bisbee meets a princess (Adrienne Ames) doing a cross-country goodwill tour as her own escape from an arranged aristocrat marriage.
Even after a public spectacle of wrestling with an ostrich (animal-rights viewers may not be amused), the prestige of the unlikely royal friendship endears Bisbee to the Crystal Springs snobs at last. Curiously, Bisbee clings to the belief that the princess is a con artist, despite her entourage.
Retooled for Fields, the material builds up to a climax of the star reprising his hilarious golfing sketch, first performed by Fields for the Ziegfield Follies in 1916. The bit was so famous it was also rendered as a standalone short subject, The Golf Specialist, in 1930, which has found its way into a few public-domain video compilations. You’re Telling Me! was curiously absent from packages of golden-age Paramount pictures licensed for TV airings, and so its appearance now on home video is especially welcome.
Kino Lorber’s presentation includes as an extra the 1964 Canadian broadcast documentary—almost as long as the feature itself—Wayne and Shuster Take an Affectionate Look at W.C. Fields, which parses the great man’s comedy techniques (and, yes, encores the golf sketch once again). As W. C. Fields might have said, it's a 200-proof addition to classic-comedy and vintage-Hollywood library shelves and film archives.