The Bank Dick (1940)
★★★½ — The Bank Dick (1940)
By the late 1930s, W.C. Fields had already established himself as one of Hollywood's most singular comic voices, a man whose screen persona of the put-upon, misanthropic swindler felt less like a character and more like a slightly exaggerated autobiography. The Bank Dick, released in 1940 by Universal Pictures, arrived at what many consider the peak of his late-career run, a 72-minute farce built almost entirely around his particular gift for making self-destruction look dignified. The film was directed by Edward F. Cline, a veteran of silent comedy who had previously worked with Buster Keaton, and the two clearly shared a sensibility for chaos organised around a deceptively loose structure. Fields himself wrote the screenplay, albeit under the magnificently implausible pseudonym Mahatma Kane Jeeves, and that level of authorial control shows: every line, every pause, every muttered aside feels precisely calibrated to suit its star.
The premise, such as it is, follows Egbert Sousé (the accent on the final "e" being, as Fields was at pains to point out, very much intentional) through a series of accidents and schemes that somehow leave him employed as a bank guard despite being almost constitutionally unsuited to the role. The film sits comfortably within the screwball and farce tradition of 1930s and 40s Hollywood comedy, though it is rather more anarchic and wilfully shambolic than many of its contemporaries. Fans of Fields' earlier work will find much that is familiar here, not least that same sense of a man at permanent war with polite society. If you have already read the review of It's a Gift, which also stars Fields, you will arrive with a reasonable sense of what to expect in terms of tone and comic rhythm. Alongside Fields, the cast includes Cora Witherspoon as his long-suffering wife, Una Merkel, Evelyn Del Rio, and Jessie Ralph, a collection of character actors well practised in the art of playing straight-faced foils to escalating absurdity.
It is worth placing the film briefly in its historical moment. Hollywood in 1940 was producing genre pictures at an extraordinary rate, and comedy in particular was a staple of the studio system. Universal, more readily associated with its horror output of the period, was nonetheless a reliable home for lighter fare. At 72 minutes, The Bank Dick is lean and unpretentious, entirely unbothered by its own modest ambitions. Whether that modesty is a virtue or a limitation is, of course, a matter of taste. The 1940s were a rich period for American film across several genres, and if you are curious how the era holds up in other registers, there is always the site's coverage of more serious fare from the same decade, including The Ox-Bow Incident and The Seventh Victim, both polished but unremarkable in very different ways from this particular film.
The Bank Dick (1940) is a classic slice of golden-age comedy that proves W.C. Fields’ brand of grumpy, self-serving absurdity has aged far better than most films from its era. Fields plays Egbert Sousé (pronounced “Sousay,” of course), a perpetually tipsy, unemployed family man who stumbles into accidental heroism, and then hilariously tries to exploit it for every ounce of personal gain. He’s lazy, scheming, and utterly shameless, yet somehow endearing in his haplessness. It’s a masterclass in deadpan chaos, delivered with cigar in hand and a permanent scowl. The supporting cast is brilliant: from the exasperated wife and bumbling bank staff to the gloriously unhinged bartender Joe, every character adds to the escalating farce. The plot (a mix-up involving a bank robbery, a phony film director, and a very nervous teller) is flimsy by design, serving mostly as scaffolding for Fields’ gags, wordplay, and physical comedy. And while some jokes rely on 1940s sensibilities (and yes, a few haven’t aged gracefully), the core humor (dry, sarcastic, and gloriously anti-authoritarian) still lands. Visually, it’s a product of its time: static camera setups, stagey blocking, and dialogue-heavy scenes. But Fields’ timing transcends the limitations. His muttered asides, exaggerated double-takes, and battles with inanimate objects remain timeless. The Bank Dick may feel a little dated in form, but W.C. Fields’ comedic genius cuts through the decades like a well-aimed golf ball through a window. It’s not polished by modern standards, but it’s sharp, subversive, and consistently funny. A reminder that sometimes, the best heroes are the ones who never wanted to be heroes at all.
I find myself coming back to that image of Fields as a man who never wanted responsibility and kept having it thrust upon him anyway, and thinking there is something almost comforting about it. Comedy has changed enormously since 1940, and plenty of films from the era creak badly under the weight of dated assumptions. But the best of Fields holds up in the way that the best of any genuine comic talent does: you are laughing at a specific sensibility, not just a set of gags, and that sensibility is still recognisably human. If anything, revisiting a film like this makes you a little more patient with the rough edges of older cinema, more willing to meet it on its own terms. Some heroes, as I say, never wanted the job. Egbert Sousé certainly did not. And somehow that makes him all the better company.
Rating: ★★★½ | Year: 1940 | Watched: 2026-04-17
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Related on Movies With Macca
More with W.C. Fields: It's a Gift (1934)
More from the 1940s: Louisiana Story (1948) · The Ox-Bow Incident (1943) · Men Without Wings (1946) · The Seventh Victim (1943)
More comedy: The Eagle (1925) · The General (1926) · Americana (2023) · The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988)
