Booze News: More W.C. on DVD and Pegg/Frost Pub Crawl Film Greenlit

Greetings, fellow inebriates,

Here at Booze Movies, we consider W.C. Fields our patron saint; so any new video release from the Great Man's filmography is a cause for celebration.  Consequently, I'm delighted to announce that Field's most surreal film, Million Dollar Legs (1932), will make its U.S. DVD debut on August 6th as part of the Turner Classic Movies and Universal box set 1930's Rarities.

Million Dollar Legs was only Fields' second sound feature, and Hollywood had not quite figured out how to showcase the talents of its greatest screen comedian.  W.C.'s role is secondary to the amiable but lesser comic actor Jack Oakie, and it is a rare role in which the Great Man does imbibe or even discuss demon alcohol.  Still, I greatly encourage soused cinema enthusiasts to seek out Million Dollar Legs, because the film is hilariously loony, and the Great Man makes the most of every second he's given to perform.

The movie is more akin to the comic insanity of the Marx Brothers' Duck Soup (1933) than to most of W.C. Fields' later work (although Never Give a Sucker an Even Break shares a similar surrealist streak).  The story takes place in Klopstokia, a small country populated by impossibly talented athletes (almost all named either George or Angela).  Fields is the President, a post determined by arm wrestling matches.  The nonsensical plot involves anarchists, spies, goats, the 1932 Olympics, and attempts to sing an old Klopstockian love song.  If you like bizarre humor, this is the film for you.

The DVD box set also includes three other sought-after 1930's flicks:

• Mae West's Belle of the Nineties (1934)
• Jack Benny's Artists and Models (1937)
• Gary Cooper's Souls at Sea (1937)

In other booze news --

The World's End, Edgar Wright's pub crawl film starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost has been officially greenlit (an outcome that was never really in doubt).  Although the film won't begin shooting until fall, a teaser poster has already been released.  You can check it out to the left.  It seems very appropriate for a film about a pub crawl.

Cheers,
garv