The Henpecked Hustler

摘要

The Comic Asides and Double-Takes of W.C. Fields always were a welcomed fifth-column attack on the pestilence of day-to-day living during the Depression years. His entertaining cynicism seems even more pertinent today. In fascinating fashion, Fields vacillated between two screen personas—the huckster and henpecked husband. Fields' trickster is in the literary tradition of the late 19th century, America's golden age of the confidence man. Like the classic pioneering diddlers who put a creative spin on Yankee ingenuity, the Fields manipulator kept on the move. The London Times said of his 1936 "Poppy" characterization: "Like all great showmen, he knows .. . the moment when the prudent man stops talking and makes hurriedly for open country—preferably on his accuser's horse." Movement protected his sneaky character from the law, creditors, and suckers who had wised up to the comedian's imaginative gambling skills. Being forever on the road offered opportunity as well as escape. As humorist Johnson J. Hooper has his notable huckster Simon Suggs observe, "It is good to be shifty in a new country." Like Suggs' old Southwest diddler, Fields' con artist engaged in small-time operations that did little, if any, harm.