Directed by: Leslie Pearce

Starring: W. C. Fields, Marjorie Kane, Arnold Gray, Dorothy Granger, Elise Cavanna, Zedna Farley

STORY

Meet Dr. J. Manley — dentist.

Although after watching him work, you may decide that keeping a toothache isn't such a terrible idea.

W. C. Fields stars as Dr. Manley, an irritable dentist whose morning begins badly and proceeds steadily downhill from there. Before he even gets to his patients, he's already fighting his way through one of Fields' favorite situations: a world apparently populated entirely by people determined to annoy him.

At home, Dr. Manley is trying to control his daughter, who has fallen in love with the iceman. Manley considers the young man completely unsuitable and responds to the romance with exactly the kind of patience, warmth and understanding we'd expect from W. C. Fields.

None.

Then it's time to go to work.

And heaven help the patients.

One after another, unsuspecting people climb into Dr. Manley's dental chair and discover that his approach to dentistry bears a disturbing resemblance to hand-to-hand combat.

A nervous patient needs treatment.

Another requires an extraction.

Then an extraordinarily tall woman arrives with a toothache, and the simple business of getting her into position in the dental chair becomes one of the film's most outrageous physical-comedy sequences.

Dr. Manley pulls.

The patient twists.

The chair moves.

Bodies become entangled.

And dentistry becomes something perilously close to an Olympic event.

Fields plays all of it with the magnificent irritation that became his trademark. His Dr. Manley doesn't behave as though anything unusual is happening. He's simply a professional trying to get through another working day while surrounded by fools, troublesome patients and family members who refuse to obey him.

That's what makes The Dentist so wonderfully W. C. Fields.

The crazier the world becomes, the more offended Fields appears that he's expected to participate in it.

At roughly twenty minutes, The Dentist is short, fast and gloriously inappropriate — a little pre-Code explosion of physical comedy from an era when filmmakers could get away with jokes and situations that Hollywood's Production Code would soon make considerably more difficult.

And after watching W. C. Fields practice dentistry, AIN can confidently offer one piece of advice:

Brush your teeth.

AIN BACKSTAGE SECRETS & AINTOIDS
W. C. FIELDS GOES TO THE DENTIST

The Dentist is one of the celebrated short comedies W. C. Fields made for legendary producer Mack Sennett before Fields became one of Paramount's major comedy stars.

The Sennett shorts gave filmmakers a wonderfully concentrated version of the Fields comic personality: impatient, suspicious, pompous, verbally inventive and perpetually at war with the human race.

Put that man in charge of dental instruments and the comedy practically writes itself.

MACK SENNETT WAS STILL MAKING PEOPLE LAUGH

Producer Mack Sennett had been helping shape movie comedy since the silent era.

As the founder of Keystone Studios, Sennett had been associated with the Keystone Cops, Mabel Normand and the early film career of Charlie Chaplin.

By the time he produced The Dentist, movies had learned to talk — and Sennett was still in the comedy business.

That makes the film a wonderful bridge between two generations of screen comedy.

FIELDS HAD BEEN FAMOUS LONG BEFORE MOVIES TALKED

W. C. Fields didn't begin as a movie comedian.

He began as a juggler.

And he was brilliant.

Fields developed an extraordinary juggling act during his years in vaudeville, eventually becoming an internationally known performer. He later appeared in the legendary Ziegfeld Follies and developed comedy routines that gradually incorporated more dialogue and character work.

The irritable, alcohol-loving, verbally inventive W. C. Fields movie audiences remember evolved over years of live performance.

PRE-CODE FIELDS

The Dentist was released in 1932, placing it squarely within Hollywood's wonderful pre-Code period.

Although the Motion Picture Production Code had been adopted in 1930, strict enforcement didn't begin until 1934.

That distinction matters.

Pre-Code filmmakers could frequently get away with sexual innuendo, suggestive physical comedy and irreverence that became much harder to put on American screens after enforcement tightened.

And The Dentist takes advantage of that freedom.

YES, THAT DENTAL-CHAIR SCENE REALLY IS THAT SUGGESTIVE

One of the film's most famous sequences involves Fields treating a tall female patient whose positioning in the dental chair becomes increasingly acrobatic.

Legs fly.

Bodies twist.

Fields struggles to reach the offending tooth.

And the staging becomes considerably more suggestive than anything you'd expect from an innocent visit to the dentist.

The scene is a perfect example of pre-Code comedy gleefully testing boundaries.

SOME VERSIONS WERE CENSORED

The movie's suggestive humor caused problems after Hollywood censorship became stricter.

For later reissues and television showings, portions of The Dentist were sometimes removed or shortened, particularly material involving Fields' female patients.

As a result, different circulating prints have not always contained exactly the same footage.

The film that audiences could see in 1932 was a little more daring than some later viewers were allowed to see.

THE GOLF GAME IS PURE FIELDS

Before Dr. Manley terrorizes his dental patients, Fields gets an opportunity to battle another longtime comic enemy:

Golf.

Fields used golf repeatedly throughout his career because it was perfectly suited to his comedy.

The golfer wants precision.

The ball refuses to cooperate.

The equipment causes problems.

Other people interfere.

And dignity gradually disappears.

In other words, it is the perfect W. C. Fields universe.

FIELDS ACTUALLY KNEW HOW TO JUGGLE THOSE GOLF CLUBS

When Fields manipulates objects with seemingly effortless physical precision, remember where he came from.

His vaudeville juggling skills were extraordinary.

He could manipulate cigar boxes, balls and other objects with a level of technical skill developed over years of practice.

That physical control became an important part of his screen comedy, even after audiences came to know him primarily for his voice and dialogue.

THE DAUGHTER AND THE ICEMAN

Dr. Manley's daughter wants to marry the iceman.

Dr. Manley does not approve.

This gives Fields another opportunity to play one of his favorite character types: the pompous authority figure who believes he controls his household only to discover that virtually nobody is interested in following his orders.

The harder Fields attempts to impose control, the less control he actually has.

That's classic Fields.

AINTOID: MACK SENNETT + W. C. FIELDS

Think about the comedy history contained in those two names.

Mack Sennett helped launch Charlie Chaplin's movie career.

He helped establish Mabel Normand as one of silent comedy's great stars.

He created the Keystone comedy factory.

Then, nearly two decades later, he was producing W. C. Fields.

The Dentist isn't merely a funny short.

It's part of the connective tissue of American screen comedy.

AINTOID: FIELDS DIDN'T LIKE CHILDREN — OR DID HE?

W. C. Fields became famous for his supposed hatred of children.

The image was part of the act.

Fields understood that saying outrageous things about children, dogs and respectable society was funny precisely because audiences weren't supposed to treat his screen personality as a model of good behavior.

His carefully cultivated reputation as America's favorite misanthrope became one of the greatest comic personas in movie history.

AINTOID: THAT VOICE

You can recognize W. C. Fields without seeing him.

That nasal drawl, elaborate vocabulary and peculiar rhythm became as important to his comedy as his bulbous nose and top hat.

Silent comedians had built characters largely through physical movement.

Fields arrived from vaudeville perfectly equipped for the talking-picture era because he had both:

A brilliant physical technique.

And an unforgettable voice.

AINTOID: THE FOUR SENNETT SHORTS

Fields made four famous shorts for Mack Sennett during this period:

The Dentist

The Pharmacist

The Barber Shop

The Fatal Glass of Beer

Together they form a wonderful miniature collection of early sound W. C. Fields.

And they helped prepare the way for the feature-film run that would make him one of the most distinctive comedy stars of the 1930s.

AINTOID: FROM SENNETT TO PARAMOUNT

Fields' success in shorts coincided with Hollywood finally discovering how perfectly his vaudeville-honed character worked in talking pictures.

He soon became closely associated with Paramount Pictures and starred in films including It's a Gift, The Old Fashioned Way, Man on the Flying Trapeze, Poppy and The Big Broadcast of 1938.

Eventually came You Can't Cheat an Honest Man, My Little Chickadee with Mae West and the gloriously surreal Never Give a Sucker an Even Break.

But these compact Sennett comedies let us watch that screen persona crystallizing.

AINTOID: THE DENTIST WAS ALMOST TOO FUNNY FOR TELEVISION

Decades after the film was made, the more suggestive sequences that pre-Code movie audiences had watched became problematic for television broadcasters.

The irony is wonderful.

A comedy made in 1932 could sometimes be too risqué for television audiences decades later.

That's why films like The Dentist are such fascinating historical artifacts.

They remind us that Hollywood history did not move neatly from conservative to permissive.

Sometimes it went backward first.

AINTOID: TWENTY MINUTES OF COMEDY HISTORY

The Dentist doesn't need a feature-length running time.

In roughly twenty minutes, we get W. C. Fields battling golf, romance, family authority, patients, dental equipment and virtually everyone who wanders into his path.

It is compact comedy filmmaking from a master who understood exactly who his character was.

Dr. Manley may not be the dentist you want working on your teeth.

But he's definitely the dentist you want W. C. Fields to play.

AINTOID: THE OFFICIAL RELEASE

The Dentist was released in the United States on December 9, 1932.

It arrived during the pre-Code era and shortly before Fields' feature-film career entered one of its greatest periods.