Six of a Kind Reviews

A veritable smorgasbord of comedy, featuring one of W.C. Fields' most famous routines. J. Pinkham Whinney (Ruggles) and his wife Flora (Boland) decide to travel to California for their second honeymoon. Flora puts an ad in the paper asking for another couple to join them and share expenses. Much to the honeymooners' dismay, George Edwards (Burns) and Gracie De Vore (Allen) answer the ad, and bring along their huge, slobbering Great Dane. Unbeknownst to Whinney, however, a clerk in the bank where he works has stolen $50,000 and hidden it in one of the suitcases bound for California, intending to rob Whinney out on the open road. A smalltown sheriff (Fields) steps in. Directed by Leo McCarey, a man who knew how to let the cameras roll and not interfere with great comedians doing their stuff (see the Marx Brothers in DUCK SOUP), SIX OF A KIND offers up a variety of good laughs, but the highlight is definitely W.C. Fields and his billiards routine. The hilariously complicated act, developed and fine-tuned during his years in vaudeville, became one of Fields' best-loved bits. In fact, Fields's very first movie, POOL SHARKS, was supposed to capture the act on film, but in the end very little of the routine was actually used. Nearly 20 years later the classic act was faithfully recreated in SIX OF A KIND. While telling a stranger how he got the name "Honest John" (he returned a man's lost glass eye), sheriff Fields attempts to play some pool. How he does so must be seen to be believed.