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predictably backs off the edge and plunges into the abyss. Miraculously, she is caught in the limbs of the only tree growing on the face of the cliff. Moments after her rescue, Pinky is shoved over edge by the exuberant Rang Tang Tang and is rescued from the same tree. Poague notes that, thematically, âthe metaphor is clear,â namely âYou can go to far (literally, âout on a limbâ) in accommodating yourself to convention (having your picture taken), and if you go far enough your very life will be endangered.â
292:, had also been schooled in managing Browningâs alcohol consumption on the set. During the filming of Six of a Kind, McCarey had to contend with the notoriously hard-drinking W. C. Fields. Actor W. C. Fields registered a complaint with Paramount executives that his character, Sheriff âHonest Johnâ Hoxley, did not appear until late into the screenplay, providing him with less material than the other players. McCarey placated Fields by allowing him to enlarge his role by ad-libbing. Thorton Delehanty of
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bank vault in his suitcase; Ferguson plans to secretly intercept the couple and switch bags in Glen Falls, implicating the McWhinneys in the heist, while he escapes. Flora, an inveterate miser, advertises for a compatible couple to join them on the trip to trim expenses. The pair who respond to the offer are an unmarried twosome, George Edward and Grace Devore (âGracie for shortâ), who are accompanied by their enormous
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the McWhinneys take rooms at the local hotel presided over by proprietress Mrs. K. Rumford known as âThe
Duchess.â She suspects the couple of being indigent because they are cash-strapped and places their valise under lock and key in case they depart without paying. She discovers the $ 50,000, and contacts the proper authorities, rather than the local Sheriff âHonest John
371:. As Fields putters about the table, painstakingly picking a billiard cue, meticulously chalking it and preparing his grip, he âpokes spasmodically at the cue ballâ, which rebounds to hit him in the head. During this pantomime, Fields relates how he got the name âHonest Johnâ concerning the discovery of a manâs lost prosthetic eye.
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Pinky, who freely shares his planned itinerary at work, is enlisted by a shady colleague, Ferguson, to transport a suitcase on the journey to their first stop in their itinerary in Glen Falls, New York (fictional). The gullible Pinky does not suspect that
Ferguson has placed $ 50,000 in cash from the
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The climax is reached when Pinky is arrested by detectives. The valise reveals not only the cash, but a negligee: Flora momentarily concludes that her husband is having an affair and planned to abscond with a mistress and the money. Ferguson is accidentally locked in the hotel baggage cage by Pinky,
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Married for twenty years, J. Pinkham and Flora
Whinney prepare to embark on a long-awaited second honeymoon, destination Hollywood, California. Flora, a housewife, and âPinky,â a bank clerk, have normalized the exchange of petty insults during their marriage, rituals that have obscured expression of
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and a holdup by hobos, the nomads arrive in
Nuggetville, Nevada (fictional). Running low on cash, Pinky wires his bank for a withdrawal. The bank, aware of the robbery and suspecting the Whinneys, alerts law enforcement of their whereabouts; investigators are dispatched. In the remote mining town,
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Gracie has placed the reluctant Flora on a weight-reducing program. To document Floraâs âbeforeâ appearance, Gracie positions her on the rim of the one-mile deep canyon for a portrait. Flora is encouraged to back away from the stationary Gracie in order to bring the camera image into focus. Flora
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The unmarried status of George and Grace affronts the conventionality of the
Whinneys with regard to sleeping arrangements. As such, the foursome sleep dormitory style, the two females and two males segregating at bedtime. The situation deprives Pinky and Flora of the intimate solitude they had
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Poague adds: âMcCarey reflects upon the necessary relationship between conventional and unconventional behavior. Either sort of behavior, carried to extremes, can be dangerousâŚAnd each sort of behavior is necessary to balance and humanize the other.â
257:, Rang Tang Tang. The couple, especially Gracie, turn out to be certifiable eccentrics. Their gigantic dog is content only when sitting in the front seat of the car. The Whinneys carefully arranged honeymoon is quickly thrown into disarray.
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Gehring, 2005 p. 101: â...major success⌠And p. 103: âBolstered by reviews mother might have written, Six of a Kind was a box office hit. Critics were quick to admit his comedy auteur status.â And: p. 104-105: â...origins of his unlikely
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and taken into custody by authorities. The negligee turns out to be that of
Fergusonâs girlfriend. The McWhinneys are cleared of guilt and have a rapprochement. George and Gracie take leave of the McKinneys and depart for Hollywood.
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The opening credit sequence introduces the six central characters with images of playing cardsâeach a jokerâand cuts to portraits coupling
Ruggles with Boland, Burns with Allen, and Fields with Skipworth.
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Schwartz, 2019: âWhile thatâs going on Fields tells with impeccable comic timing how he got his name of âHonest Johnâ after finding a manâs glass eyeâŚThough only in a cameo, Fields steals the picâŚâ
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Mr. Fields himself, if left to his own devices, can win our unqualified recommendation for any picture he is in, and the current film he is in provides him generously with elbow room.â
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Fields ineptitude as a lawman contributes to the salvation of the
Whinneys, as his delays and diversions lead to the capture of the criminal Ferguson and the couplesâ exoneration.
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shows us the other side of McCareyâs comic coin, for it focuses on characters who are tested by the intrusion of the unconventional into their otherwise over-conventional lives.
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Hoxley, an irredeemable drunkard. She dares not enlist him in the investigation. However, despite her disapproval, she has routinely kept Hoxley in liquor by loaning him money.
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explores the comic possibilities that emerge when social conventionality clashes with independent or eccentric personalities. In contrast to his 1933 comedy
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In a demonstration of W. C. Fieldsâ âmarvelous pantomime,â the actor reprises the vaudeville skit he conceived in 1905. and had famously performed for the
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their genuine affection. They anticipate escaping from their middle-class conventionality and reanimating their intimacy on a two-week âgypsy interlude.â
391:, in which McCarey champions the central characters who defy âsocial rigidity,â here he presents the obverse. Film critic Leland Poague writes:
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review entitled âNew
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1112:(1962)
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