| The Old Fashioned Way | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | William Beaudine |
| Produced by | William LeBaron |
| Written by | Jack Cunningham W. C. Fields |
| Starring | W. C. Fields Joe Morrison Baby LeRoy Judith Allen Jan Duggan Tammany Young Nora Cecil Oscar Apfel |
| Music by | John Leipold |
| Cinematography | Ben F. Reynolds |
| Studio | Paramount Pictures |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
| Release date(s) | July 13, 1934 |
| Running time | 70 min. |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
The Old Fashioned Way is a 1934 film produced by Paramount Pictures and starring W. C. Fields. The film was directed by William Beaudine. The script was written by Jack Cunningham based on a story by "Charles Bogle" (one of Fields's writing pseudonyms).
Fields stars as "The Great McGonigle", the blustery actor-manager of a traveling theater troupe that is perpetually underfunded and always just a step ahead of the law and creditors. The character is rather similar to the carnival operator types he would play in Poppy and You Can't Cheat an Honest Man.
McGonigle's daughter Betty (Judith Allen) is loyal to her father. She tries to discourage a suitor named Wally Livingston (Joe Morrison), telling him he should follow his father's wishes and go to college instead of trying to become an actor.
Wally's wealthy father (Oscar Apfel) arrives in the town where the troupe is scheduled to perform a Victorian melodrama called The Drunkard. One of the players has resigned, and Wally wins the part, affording him a chance to act and also to perform a couple of songs in his strong tenor voice. His father is impressed by his son's talent, and his skepticism about Betty is eased when he learns that she has been trying to get Wally to return to college.
The play itself, at 20 minutes the film's centerpiece, is acted in the style of the period. Reaction shots show audience members at a pitch of emotional involvement: an elderly spectator is cautioned to think of his heart; a young sophisticate skeptically asks his pretty date, "Do you think this is a good play?"
After the play concludes, Fields comes onstage and performs his juggling act. This setpiece affords a rare opportunity to observe Fields's famous vaudeville specialty, as Fields juggles airborne balls and cigar boxes. In this bit, Fields looks relatively fit and trim, in contrast to the plumper look that became part of his trademark in later years.
McGonigle learns that the troupe's sponsor is canceling the tour, due to poor advance reports. McGonigle tells Betty and Wally that he has decided to close the show and to seek his fortune in New York City. The bride and groom and his father ride the train back to the Livingston home, and Betty gets a telegram from her father stating that things are going well in the big city. In reality, McGonigle has become a snake=oil salesman. In the film's final scene, he is shown conning a crowd of onlookers into buying a fake "cure for hoarseness."
Tammany Young, a recurring member of Fields' small cadre of actors, plays his dim-witted assistant, Marmaduke. Jan Duggan plays a wealthy and untalented widow, Cleopatra Pepperday ("all dressed up like a well-kept grave"), whom McGonigle exploits to stave off the local sheriff, who is Cleo's boyfriend. Baby LeRoy is her son, Albert, who pesters McGonigle, including squeezing his bulbous nose and dipping his watch in molasses; but McGonigle gets even by taking an opportunity to boot the child in the rear.
The Old Fashioned Way isn't explicit about what the "old-fashioned way" may be, but one may guess it is the way of the old-fashioned traveling small-town theater troupe, with its values notably bereft of artistic merit. McGonigle's theater, it reveals, is as much a con as his hoarseness cure.