Today's guest blogger is Eric Grayson,a film historian and preservationist who lives in Indianapolis.
The IMA’s silent film series continues on April 12, with a rare showing of WC Fields’ So’s Your Old Man (1926), followed by its sound remake You’re Telling Me (1934). Although Fields is well remembered for his talking pictures, his silent work is nearly forgotten today. Most of the films are tied up in complex rights issues, none of which got more complicated than So’s Your Old Man.
Based on an award-winning story by Julian Street, the film tells the story of eccentric inventor Sam Bisbee (Fields), who has invented a shatterproof glass and wants to sell the patent in the big city. A series of tragic and comic circumstances keep Bisbee from selling his patent, and, dejected, he boards a train bound for home. Unable to face the shame of failure, he contemplates suicide. Fortune belatedly intervenes and a foreign princess, traveling on the same train, comes to his rescue.
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