It was 83 years ago when "The Fatal Glass Of Beer" was made!
Great title, and I say "Cheerz" and welcome to another Weird-Ass Wednesday from down in The Dungeon!
Search IMDB and you'll find a reference to a 1916 release called "The Fatal Glass Of Beer" made by Tod (Freaks) Browning, starring Elmo (Tarzan) Lincoln, but then they go on to tell you that there is no known copy of the film ever produced or released!
So, I personally have some inside information from a qualified source who told me that some time in the 1960's, Ed Wood produced a film starring Boris Karloff, James Dean, Janis Joplin, and almost the whole cast of "West Side Story" about teenage virgin zombies called "Walker Stomp" that has an impossible to find Grateful Dead with Neil Young on kazoo soundtrack!
The world is SO freakin' weird! How does stuff like this work? The man on the left is a guy named Richard Cramer! Richard had 257 acting credits from 1927 to 1952, and a gentleman whose name should be a household word, but I'm willing to bet that 99.9% of anybody who reads this will have no idea who he is! These days, it only takes one shitty song, and you're on the top of the world! How does that work?
W.C. Fields does his best impersonation of Joni Mitchell playing the zither with gloves on incapable of actually anything called "The Fatal Glass Of Beer," and a sad story indeed it is!
"Don't go round breakin' people's tambourines!"
"Don't go round breakin' people's tambourines!"
A guy drinks a glass of beer, and guess what?
What the Hell did you think?? Of course, he dies!
It's a "Fatal Glass Of Beer!"
This dogsled has one dog who is not doing his share! Reminds me of when I was in basic training, and we had to do the 150 yard man carry! You carried a guy piggyback approximately the same weight as you through beach sand for 150 yards. I had a buddy who was the Hawaiian Golden Gloves heavyweight champion, and I was 115 pounds, so he volunteered to carry me both ways, and I don't know how, but some how we got away with it!
The on-running gag in "The Fatal Glass Of Beer" is W.C. Fields opening the door to the cabin and saying "It ain't a fit night out for man nor beast," and each time getting blasted in the face with a fistful of fake snow!
I think my favourite comedic part in the film is the dinner table scene where W.C. keeps dipping this whole loaf of bread into whatever broth they're eating!
Then, there is the running with the elk!
I didn't count them, but there's enough time to reprise the snow in the face bit one last time, because it's just as funny as it was the first time! I found this copy of "The Fatal Glass Of Beer" on the Internet Archive, but you can also find it on YouTube!
It's only 18 minutes, go for it!
3 comments:
I've only seen it once or twice, but I know its description well from a very good W.C. Fields book by William K. Everson.
One of the best lines is when Fields says "The city is no place for girls, but pretty men often go there."
(Which of course sounds like one of those countless gay jokes in earlier movies that got slipped past the censors.)
Please note, in an incredible bit of "movie connections"... The dogsled that Yukon Cornelius leads in RUDOLPH THE RED NOSED REINDEER (c.1964 Rankin-Bass TV special) is clearly modeled after the multi-dog dogsled in FATAL GLASS. Watch and see for yourself!
Good one Dr. Mark, you deserve overtime pay! Thanx!!
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