The Dentist

The Dentist (1932)

*** (out of 4)

W.C. Fields gets to shine in this pre-code Paramount short where he plays the title role. The film starts off as the dentist learns that his daughter is wanting to date an ice delivery man, which of course he wants no part of. After a disastrous round of golf the dentist returns to his office where several strange characters wait. THE DENTIST is perhaps one of Fields' best known shorts for a number of reasons. Of course, one of the more notorious reasons is all the sexual innuendo that happens once the final portion of the film happens. I'm not going to spoil these scenes but they are quite funny and especially the dialogue where Fields pretty much just insults them right to their faces. The stuff dealing with the golf was also quite funny and especially the sequence where the actor just completely loses it and begins throwing everything into the water. There are several scenes in the film where people have their teeth damaged in a wide variety of ways so those scared of the men in white will certainly want to stay away from this thing even though it is a comedy. There's no question Fields is at the top of his game because everything from his line delivery to the way he walks is just perfect.

Whether he's pulling teeth with all the subtlety of a man with a whirring motorized drill or playing golf with a losing streak that causes him to toss his caddy into a stream of water, W.C. FIELDS is as ornery and ill-tempered as ever in this short subject from '32.

By today's standards, it's a terribly old-fashioned and crude look at the profession of dentistry with Fields showing no regard at all for a polished technique of examining patients and/or pulling teeth. His nurse plays it straight while he tussles with a variety of patients, one of them a woman who literally wraps herself around him as he struggles to pull a tooth and another, a man with a beard so thick that Fields states: "I can't even find his mouth." None of it makes any sense and it's all played strictly for whatever laughs anyone can get out of the character that W.C. Fields invented for pre-code audiences.

Summing up: Not for the squeamish. Anyone preparing for their next dental appointment better avoid this one. The politically correct may be offended by some of the ethnic humor--particularly the "yellow jaundice" joke about a Jap.

I know the movie is a comedy short, but it didn't strike me as being terribly funny. Yet that's what I've come to expect of Fields' work. True, the movie had a number of amusing lines and situations, but I find it more interesting as a peek into American life in 1932. First, the Dentist had his office in his home. Second, his all-black dental equipment, common for the time, looked like instruments of torture. Third, he had an ice box in his kitchen, not a refrigerator -- though in upper middle-class fashion of the time, it had a white enamel exterior, not wood. Though I haven't viewed the film in a number of years, I also recall the interesting wearing apparel in the golf course scenes, most notably the knickers; the clubs had wood shafts; but the course itself appeared very contemporary. Then again, the tee-fairway-green structure of golf courses is pretty much the same today as it was more than 70 years ago. True, the sound quality is very crude, but this movie was made just five years after the very first film "talkie" amazed its audiences.

W.C. Fields plays the title role in this short, and he's not a dentist I'd want to visit but he's extremely funny. There are all sorts of classic throw away gags in here, from melting a heavy 50 pound block of ice on the stove down to ice cube size to make it easier to carry, to a man with a huge beard, in which the dentist can't seem to find his mouth. Trying to pull a tooth from a society matron, he and the patient assume every possible position as he attempts to get the tooth out. At one point he's carrying her around while hanging onto the tooth with pliers. Ouch! While this is going on, he's also trying to stop his daughter from going out with the ice man, by locking her in her room. Very inventive and still very funny.

This is a pretty good short comedy, with W.C. Fields in a role that works very well for him, as an irascible and absent-minded dentist, and several settings that offer the chance for some good comic material. The dentist has some difficulties with his daughter at home, then has some mishaps on the golf course, and finally heads to the office for more trouble. There is a good blend of sight gags and dialogue jokes. Some of the gags are quite clever, and Fields usually helps the more routine ones to come across pretty well, too. This should be worth a look for anyone who likes these 30's-style short comedies.