IT'S A GIFT (1934) B/W 73m dir: Norman Z. McLeod

w/W.C. Fields, Jean Rouverol, Julian Madison, Kathleen Howard, Tommy Bupp, Tammany Young, Baby LeRoy, Morgan Wallace, Charles Sellon, Josephine Whittell

In this hilarious film, the great comedian plays a shopkeeper with a shrewish wife and horrid children.

From The Movie Guide: "Never was a film so well titled. Along with THE BANK DICK, this is the finest, funniest movie W.C. Fields ever made. It's also a rollicking spoof of middle-class marriage and mainstream ambitions. ...

"IT'S A GIFT is almost nonstop laughter, loaded with Fields' patented sight gags, slapstick, and dialogue uttered out of the corner of his mouth. Fields resurrected much of this material from other sources, such as his silent film IT'S THE OLD ARMY GAME and the 1925 play The Comic Supplement. He also drew on his memories as the son of a Philadelphia pushcart vendor for some of the story, which he wrote under the name of Charles Bogle. Though Norman McLeod was the nominal director, Fields picked his own cast and essentially ran the film, and his wonderful, caustic humor comes through on every frame."