The Bank Dick

The Bank Dick, released as The Bank Detective in the United Kingdom, is a 1940 American 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 (later one of the Three Stooges), Franklin Pangborn, Grady Sutton, Jessie Ralph, and Cora Witherspoon.
In 1992, The Bank Dick was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". (Read more at Wikipedia)
== Links To Peel ==
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The Bank Dick, as one of W.C. Fields' best-known films, may well have featured in the festival of Fields films which Peel and his producer John Walters enjoyed at a London cinema in April 1970, the event which caused them to become good friends due to their shared admiration for Fields's humour. But it was also shown on TV a couple of months later in BBC2's Midnight Movie slot, as Peel refers to it in his Disc & Music Echo column of 6 June 1970: "I hope you saw W.C. Fields in "The Bank Dick" on the midnight movie last weekendAccording to BBC Genome, the film was shown on 30 May 1970. It was followed by an episode of Disco 2, the predecessor of the Old Grey Whistle Test, introduced by Tommy Vance and featuring "Fleetwood Mac in their last appearance before Peter Green leaves the group, also film of Quintessence recording two tracks for their latest album at St Pancras Town Hall". The funniest man of the lot".
== References ==
== External Links ==
* Wikipedia
* IMDb
* AllMovie
Category:Films