The Dentist
About The Dentist
W. C. Fields plays a dentist who bullies patients, assistants, and his golf caddies, and who will not let his daughter Mary marry Arthur, the ice man. He locks Mary in the bedroom over the office. She stamps, and plaster falls while he works. A tall patient and a tiny bearded man come in. He hunts the bearded man's mouth with a stethoscope, drills without a painkiller, and wrestles a patient to pull a tooth. Arthur puts a ladder to the window and gets Mary out. A crowd makes Fields drop his objection. He tells the future son-in-law to deliver fifty pounds of ice, and adds that he may buy an electric refrigerator.
Cast & crew
More about The Dentist
Leslie Pearce directed. W. C. Fields wrote the script and stars. Mack Sennett produced it. Paramount released it on September 9, 1932. It runs 22 minutes. It is one of four shorts Fields made with Sennett at Paramount.
Themes
Making
Sennett, near the end of his run as a producer, used the short to put Fields's stage dentist routine on a sound stage.
Preservation
A print is on Wikimedia Commons.
Notes
- Marjorie 'Babe' Kane plays Mary. Arnold Gray plays Arthur. Dorothy Granger plays Miss Peppitone. Elise Cavanna plays Miss Mason. Zedna Farley is the dental assistant.
- Billy Bletcher is the bearded patient. Bud Jamison and Grady Sutton are golf partners. Bobby Dunn is a caddy.
- The golf scene comes before the office, and the same temper follows him from the course to the chair.
- The bedroom is staged directly above the dental room so the stamping hits the ceiling.
Scenes
- Plaster drops on a patient while Mary stamps overhead.
- Fields uses a stethoscope to find the bearded patient's mouth.
- Arthur's ladder takes Mary out the bedroom window.
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (The Dentist (1932).webm)