Man on the Flying Trapeze
| Man on the Flying Trapeze | |
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Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by |
Clyde Bruckman W. C. Fields (uncredited) |
| Produced by | William LeBaron |
| Written by | W. C. Fields (story, as "Charles Bogle") Sam Hardy (story) Ray Harris Jack Cunningham (uncredited) John Sinclair (uncredited) Bobby Vernon (uncredited) |
| Starring | W. C. Fields Mary Brian Kathleen Howard |
| Cinematography | Alfred Gilks |
| Edited by | Richard C. Currier |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
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Release date
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Running time
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65 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Man on the Flying Trapeze (also released as The Memory Expert) is a 1935 comedy film starring W. C. Fields as a henpecked husband. As with his other roles of this nature, Fields is put-upon throughout the film, but triumphs in the end.
Ambrose Wolfinger works as a "memory expert" for a manufacturing company's president; he keeps files of details about all the people President Malloy (Oscar Apfel) meets with, so that Malloy will never be embarrassed about not remembering things when meeting with them. Ambrose supports himself, his shrewish wife Leona (Kathleen Howard), his loving daughter Hope (from a previous marriage; played by Mary Brian), his freeloading brother-in-law Claude (Grady Sutton), and his abusive mother-in-law Cordelia (Vera Lewis).
At the start of the film, two burglars, played by Tammany Young and Walter Brennan, break into Ambrose's cellar late at night, get drunk on his homemade applejack, and start singing "On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away"; Ambrose is forced to handle the situation, and he winds up being arrested for distilling liquor without a license. This is done on the order of the night court judge hearing the case. He forgets about dealing with the burglars. While on the way to the night court Ambrose talks about the wrestling match scheduled for that day and demonstrates an "unbreakable" hold on the neighborhood watch policeman who arrested the burglars. The policeman throws him into the street. When he asks Ambrose if he hurt him, Ambrose asks him how someone could be hurt by being dropped on his head.
The next day, Ambrose falsely tells Malloy that Cordelia had died from drinking poisoned liquor, and asks for the afternoon off to attend the funeral; in fact, he wants to go to see the big wrestling match. Malloy, touched by Ambrose's tale, lets him go for the day, and Ambrose's immediate supervisor, Mr. Peabody (Lucien Littlefield), tells all the other employees the tragic news so they can pay their respects to the family. In fact, Ambrose does not explicitly say that his mother-in-law died from poisoned liquor. Rather, when his employer asks him how she died, he begins to improvise a story. He says she was taken with a "chill" and that he poured her a drink. Then Malloy interrupts him and, assuming it was the liquor that killed her, says excitedly that he has read in the paper recently of many instances of people dying from poisoned liquor. Ambrose is too timid to contradict him.
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Wikipedia