page_title: The Bank Dick
section_title: Reception
hierarchical_section_title: The Bank Dick / Reception
caption_attribution_description: English: "Style D" theatrical poster for the American release of the 1940 film The Bank Dick.
context_page_description: The Bank Dick, released as The Bank Detective in the United Kingdom, is a 1940 comedy film starring W.C. Fields. Set in Lompoc, California, Fields plays Egbert Sousé who accidentally thwarts a bank robbery and ends up a bank security guard as a result. The character is a drunk who must repeatedly remind people in exasperation that his name is pronounced "Sousé—accent grave over the 'e'!", because people keep calling him "Souse", slang for drunkard. In addition to bank and family scenes, it features Fields pretending to be a film director and ends in a chaotic car chase. The Bank Dick is considered a classic of his work, incorporating his usual persona as a drunken henpecked husband with a shrewish wife, disapproving mother-in-law, and savage children.
  The film was written by Fields, using the alias "Mahatma Kane Jeeves", derived from the Broadway drawing-room comedy cliche, "My hat, my cane, Jeeves!", and directed by Edward F. Cline. The featured actors were Una Merkel, Richard Purcell, Shemp Howard, Franklin Pangborn, Grady Sutton, Jessie Ralph, and Cora Witherspoon.
context_section_description: The Bank Dick received many favorable reviews. Bosley Crowther of The New York Times wrote that "for anyone who simply likes to laugh at the reckless inanities of an inspired buffoon, we recommend The Bank Dick. It's great fun." The reviewer for Variety wrote "It's a crazy-quilt pattern aiming for laughs, and achieves the purpose adequately. Several times, Fields reaches into satirical pantomime reminiscent of Charlie Chaplin's best effort in that line during Mutual and Essanay days."
  Harrison's Reports called it "A good program comedy. W.C. Fields is at his best and for that reason the picture should go over very well with his fans." John Mosher of The New Yorker wrote that "there is often an incident or gesture reminiscent of the Mack Sennett comedies. At times, the movie even smacks of those old days so exactly that you almost believe it must be a revival of some classic. There's nothing antiquated about it, however, no stale, museum starchiness, and the scandalous Mr. Fields has to be forgiven his outrageous behavior, since he is so simply and honestly funny." Film critic Leslie Halliwell deemed it "Imperfect, but probably the best Fields vehicle there is", and W.C. Fields biographer Robert Lewis Taylor called it "One of the great classics of American comedy".
  However, Otis Ferguson, a reviewer for The New Republic wrote "When [Fields] is funny he is terrific...but the story is makeshift, the other characters are stock types, the only pace discernible is the distance between drinks or the rhythm of the fleeting seconds it takes Fields to size up trouble and duck the hell out."
  The film currently has a rating of 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 21 reviews. In a list submitted to Cinema magazine in 1963, noted director Stanley Kubrick named it his eighth favorite film.
caption: Theatrical release poster, Style D
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CC 2019 (Macintosh)", "Image DateTime": "2020:02:04 17:39:10", "Image ExifOffset": "172", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "310", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "9261", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1967", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2936"}