''The Bank Dick'', released as ''The Bank Detective'' in the United Kingdom, is a 1940 American comedy film starring

W. C. Fields William Claude Dukenfield (January 29, 1880 – December 25, 1946), better known as W. C. Fields, was an American comedian, actor, juggler, and writer. Fields's comic persona was a misanthropic and hard-drinking egotist who remained a sympathet ...

. Set in

Lompoc, California Lompoc ( ; Chumash: ''Lum Poc'') is a city in Santa Barbara County, California. Located on the Central Coast, Lompoc has a population of 43,834 as of July 2021. Lompoc has been inhabited for thousands of years by the Chumash people, who calle ...

, Fields plays Egbert Sousé, a drunk who accidentally thwarts a bank robbery and ends up a bank security guard as a result. The film was written by Fields, using the alias Mahatma Kane Jeeves (derived from the Broadway drawing-room comedy cliché "My hat, my cane,

Jeeves Jeeves (born Reginald Jeeves, nicknamed Reggie) is a fictional character in a series of comedic short stories and novels by English author P. G. Wodehouse. Jeeves is the highly competent valet of a wealthy and idle young Londoner named Berti ...

!"), and directed by Edward F. Cline. The film also stars

Una Merkel Una Merkel (December 10, 1903 – January 2, 1986) was an American stage, film, radio, and television actress. Merkel was born in Kentucky and acted on stage in New York in the 1920s. She went to Hollywood in 1930 and became a popular film ...

, Richard Purcell,

Shemp Howard Samuel Horwitz (March 11, 1895 – November 22, 1955), known professionally as Shemp Howard, was an American actor and comedian. He was called "Shemp" because "Sam" came out that way in his mother's thick Litvak accent. He is best known as the ...

(of

the Three Stooges The Three Stooges were an American vaudeville and comedy team active from 1922 until 1970, best remembered for their 190 short subject films by Columbia Pictures. Their hallmark styles were physical farce and slapstick. Six Stooges appeared ...

Franklin Pangborn Franklin Pangborn (January 23, 1889 – July 20, 1958) was an American comedic character actor famous for playing small but memorable roles with comic flair. He appeared in many Preston Sturges movies as well as the W. C. Fields films '' Interna ...

Grady Sutton Grady Harwell Sutton (April 5, 1906 – September 17, 1995) was an American film and television character actor from the 1920s to the 1970s. He appeared in more than 180 films. Early years Born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Sutton was raised ...

Jessie Ralph Jessie Ralph Patton ( Chambers; November 5, 1864 – May 30, 1944), known as Jessie Ralph, was an American stage and screen actress, best known for her matronly roles in many classic films. Early life Jessie Ralph Chambers was the 13th child ...

and

Cora Witherspoon Cora Witherspoon (January 5, 1890 – November 17, 1957) was an American stage and film character actress whose career spanned nearly half a century. She began in theatre where she remained rooted even after entering motion pictures in the ...

. In 1992, ''The Bank Dick'' was selected for preservation in the United States

National Film Registry The National Film Registry (NFR) is the United States National Film Preservation Board's (NFPB) collection of films selected for preservation, each selected for its historical, cultural and aesthetic contributions since the NFPB’s inception ...

by the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The libra ...

as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

Plot

Hard-drinking family man Egbert Sousé has strained relations with his wife and mother-in-law over his drinking, smoking and habit of taking money out of the piggy bank of his younger daughter Elsie Mae and replacing it with IOUs. He tries to hit Elsie Mae with a concrete urn but is interrupted when his older daughter Myrtle wants to introduce him to her fiancé Og Oggilby. When A. Pismo Clam, the director of a film that is shooting in town, goes on a bender, producer Mackley Q. Greene offers the job to Sousé. While on his lunch break, he catches a man who has robbed the bank where Og works. The grateful bank president offers Sousé a job as the bank's "special officer," a bank detective ("dick"). After being conned by swindler J. Frothingham Waterbury, Sousé convinces Og to steal $500 from the bank to invest in a questionable mining company. Og hopes to return the money to the bank four days later when he expects to receive his annual bonus, but bank examiner J. Pinkerton Snoopington arrives to immediately audit the bank. Sousé invites him to the Black Pussy Cat Café, a saloon run by Joe Guelpe, and drugs him with knockout drops and has him examined by the quack Dr. Stall. Despite this, Snoopington is determined to do his duty and proceed with the audit. Og faints when he sees the examiner in the bank, and Sousé tries to delay the audit further by depriving Snoopington of his glasses. As Snoopington is about to discover the missing funds, the swindler shows up to buy back the stocks from Og at a discount, but Sousé learns that the mine has struck it rich, and he and Og are now wealthy and no longer must worry about the audit. However, the escaped bank robber Repulsive Brogan returns to rob the bank a second time, and escapes with the bank's money and Og's mining-company stock, taking Sousé hostage. The robber forces him to drive the getaway car, and the police, the bank director, Og and the movie producer chase them, with parts of the getaway car continuously breaking loose. Sousé once again receives the credit for catching the thief and receives $5,000 for the capture of Brogan, $10,000 from the film producer for his screen story and a contract to direct a film based on it. Now that he is rich, Sousé lives in a mansion and his family is elegant and well-spoken and treats him with respect, but he still follows Joe Guelpe on his way to open the Black Pussy Cat Café.

Cast

Production

Alternative titles for the film were ''The Bank Detective'' and ''The Great Man''. With the success of his two previous films, ''

You Can't Cheat an Honest Man ''You Can't Cheat an Honest Man'' is a 1939 American comedy film directed by George Marshall and Edward F. Cline and starring W. C. Fields. Fields also wrote the story on which the film is based under the name Charles Bogle. Plot Circus propr ...

'' and '' My Little Chickadee'', Fields was able to demand complete creative control. He wrote the script under the pseudonym of Mahatma Kane Jeeves. Principal photography began in early September 1940.

Reception

''The Bank Dick'' received many favorable reviews.

Bosley Crowther Francis Bosley Crowther Jr. (July 13, 1905 – March 7, 1981) was an American journalist, writer, and film critic for ''The New York Times'' for 27 years. His work helped shape the careers of many actors, directors and screenwriters, though his ...

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." A 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 Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin Jr. (16 April 188925 December 1977) was an English comic actor, filmmaker, and composer who rose to fame in the era of silent film. He became a worldwide icon through his screen persona, the Tramp, and is conside ...

's best effort in that line during Mutual and Essanay days." ''

Harrison's Reports ''Harrison's Reports'' was a New York City-based motion picture trade journal published weekly from 1919 to 1962. The typical issue was four letter-size pages sent to subscribers under a second-class mail permit. Its founder, editor and publisher ...

'' called the film " 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 John Mosher (1928–1998) was an American jazz bassist, classical bassist and composer who worked, recorded and toured with a wide range of primarily West Coast artists from the 1950s through the mid-1990s. Early years A native of Sioux City, I ...

of ''The New Yorker'' wrote that "there is often an incident or gesture reminiscent of the

Mack Sennett Mack Sennett (born Michael Sinnott; January 17, 1880 – November 5, 1960) was a Canadian-American film actor, director, and producer, and studio head, known as the 'King of Comedy'. Born in Danville, Quebec, in 1880, he started in films in the ...

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 Robert James Leslie Halliwell (23 February 1929 – 21 January 1989) was a British film critic, encyclopaedist and television rights buyer for ITV, the British commercial network, and Channel 4. He is best known for his reference guides, '' Fi ...

deemed the film " perfect, but probably the best Fields vehicle there is" and W.C. Fields biographer Robert Lewis Taylor called it " e of the great classics of American comedy." However,

Otis Ferguson Otis Ferguson (August 14, 1907 – September 14, 1943) was an American writer best remembered for his music and film reviews in ''The New Republic'' in the 1930s. Although he can be seen as a predecessor to film critics James Agee, Manny Farber, P ...

, a reviewer for ''The New Republic'', wrote: "When ieldsis 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 has a rating of 100% on

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...

based on 21 reviews. In a list submitted to ''Cinema'' magazine in 1963, noted director

Stanley Kubrick Stanley Kubrick (; July 26, 1928 – March 7, 1999) was an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and photographer. Widely considered one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, his films, almost all of which are adaptations of nove ...

named it his eighth-favorite film. The film was released on DVD by

The Criterion Collection The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home video, home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films." Criterion serves film and media scho ...

but has since been

out of print __NOTOC__ An out-of-print (OOP) or out-of-commerce item or work is something that is no longer being published. The term applies to all types of printed matter, visual media, sound recordings, and video recordings. An out-of-print book is a boo ...

References

Informational notes Citations

External links

* ''The Bank Dick'' essay by

Randy Skretvedt Randy Skretvedt (born November 1958) is an American film and music scholar, author, lecturer and broadcaster. His 1987 book ''Laurel and Hardy: The Magic Behind the Movies'' (updated in 1996) is the reference standard for Laurel and Hardy fa ...

br>
* ''The Bank Dick'' essay by Daniel Eagan in America's Film Legacy: The Authoritative Guide to the Landmark Movies in the National Film Registry, A&C Black, 2010 , pages 327-32

* * * *
Review of ''The Bank Dick''
at TVGuide.com
''The Bank Dick''
an essay by Dennis Perrin at the

Criterion Collection The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films." Criterion serves film and media scholars, cine ...

Roger Ebert "Great Movies" essay on the film
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bank Dick, The 1940 films 1940s crime comedy films American crime comedy films American black-and-white films Films about bank robbery Films directed by Edward F. Cline Films with screenplays by W. C. Fields United States National Film Registry films Universal Pictures films 1940 comedy films 1940s English-language films 1940s American films