W.C. Fields and Me - Critical Reception

Critical Reception

In his review in the New York Times, Vincent Canby called the film "dreadful" and added, "It holds up a wax dummy of a character intended to represent the great misanthropic comedian and expects us to feel compassion but only traps us in embarrassment . . . the movie needn't have been quite as brainless as it is. That took work. First off, Bob Merrill . . . has supplied a screenplay that originally may have been meant as the outline for a musical. It exhibits a tell-tale disregard for facts and the compulsion to make a dramatically shapeless life fit into a two-act form . . . Then there's Arthur Hiller, a director who makes intelligent films when the material is right . . . and terrible ones when the writers fail. Most prominent in the mess is Rod Steiger, who . . . reads all of his lines with the monotonous sing-song manner used by third-rate nightclub comics doing Fields imitations. He also speaks most of them out of the corner of his mouth as if he'd had a stroke."

Time Out London calls it a "witless biopic leaps through pseudo-history with cretinous inaccuracy. Sloppily slung together, hell-bent on wringing hearts with the drama of the last, lonely, drink-sodden years, it can't get even the simplest facts straight, and doesn't do much of a job on the tear-jerking either . . . Steiger makes a brave stab at the part, but the reality and genius of Fields never get a look in."

However, TV Guide awarded it three out of a possible four stars with the comment, "Though the great comedian would have hated this film, this movie biography . . . has a certain appeal thanks to Steiger's handling of the lead role . . . Rather than ape Fields, creates his own interpretation of the man, capturing subtle nuances that create a better-rounded character."