Don’t be a luddy-duddy!

A friend recently asked my advice about an investment suggested to him by a salesperson with one of the larger multinational financial services companies. I thought there were some problems with the vehicle, a unit investment trust, though it might not be a bad choice for someone in his circumstances. But it reminded me of the archetypal encounter between salesperson and prospect portrayed in W.C. Fields’ The Bank Dick. It seems likely that Fields was reliving the days before the 1929 stock market crash, when fast-talking brokers unloaded soon-to-be-worthless stock on eager would-be investors, lured by a flowery spiel promising a life of luxury and ease.

The Bank Dick
Universal
1940

CAST:
Egbert Sousé.................... W.C. Fields
J. Frothingham Waterbury...... Russell Hicks
Og Oggilby.............................. Grady Sutton

INT. BLACK PUSSY CAT CAFÉ.

WATERBURY

Pardon me, I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation. Waterbury’s my name, J. Frothingham Waterbury.

SOUSÉ

Very glad to know you. My name is Sousé, accent grave over the e.

WATERBURY

I’m in the bond and stock business. Now, I have five thousand shares of the Beefsteak Mines in Leapfrog, Nevada, that I want to turn over to your bank. I like this little town and I want to get some contacts, I think you’re the very man.

Now, these shares are selling for ten cents a share.

SOUSÉ backs into a table, impaling himself on a fork. Squealing, he removes it.

WATERBURY

Now, these shares are selling for ten cents a share. A telephone company once sold for five cents a share. These shares are twice as expensive, therefore, consequently they’ll be twice as valuable. Naturally, you’re no dunce. Telephone is now listed at one seventy-three and you can’t buy it. Three thousand, four hundred and sixty dollars for every nickel you put into it. The point I’m trying to make is this —

SOUSÉ takes hat off hatrack, puts it on.

WATERBURY

The point I’m trying to make is, these shares sell for ten cents. It’s simple arithmetic — if five’ll get you ten, ten will get you twenty. Sixteen-cylinder cars, a big home in the city — balconies upstairs and down. Home in the country — big trees, private golf course, stream running through the rear of the estate. Warm Sunday afternoon, fishing under the cool trees, sipping ice-cold beer.

WATERBURY mimes blowing foam off beer

SOUSÉ

I can almost see the foam, yes.

WATERBURY

Ham and cheese on rye —

SOUSÉ

With mustard. We have plenty of mustard at the house, yeah.

WATERBURY

Yes. And then this guy comes up the shady drive in an armored car from the bank, and he dumps a whole basket of coupons worth hundreds of thousands of dollars right in your lap. And he says, “Sign here, please, on the dotted line.”

SOUSÉ

I’ll have a fountain pen by that time.

WATERBURY

And then he’s off, to the soft chirping of our little feathered friends in the arboreal dell. That’s what these bonds mean.

SOUSÉ

They do, eh?

WATERBURY

I’d rather part with my dear old grandmother’s paisley shawl or her wedding ring than part with these bonds.

WATERBURY removes a handkerchief from his pocket, wipes his eyes.

SOUSÉ

It must be tough to lose a paisley shawl.

SOUSÉ takes the handkerchief from WATERBURY and dabs at his eyes in sympathy.

WATERBURY

Gosh! Oh, pardon my language. . . I feel like a dog. But it’s now or never. It must be done. So take it or leave it.

SOUSÉ

I’ll take it.

WATERBURY

Fine, fine, fine.

* * *

EXT. LOMPOC STREET.

SOUSÉ walks to the bank in a big hurry.

INT. LOMPOC STATE BANK.

SOUSÉ finds OGGILBY in the vault.

SOUSÉ

Og, my boy, I’ve got you set for life! I don’t hang around that Black Pussy Café for nothing. I met a poor fellow who is in trouble. There’s something the matter with his grandmother’s paisley shawl. He has five thousand shares in the Beefsteak Mine and you can buy them for a handful of hay!

OGGILBY

Hay? And they’re worth. . .

SOUSÉ

Ten cents a share. Telephone sold for five cents a share. How would you like something better for ten cents a share? If five gets you ten, ten’ll get you twenty. Beautiful home in the country, upstairs and down. Beer flowing through the estate over your grandmother’s paisley shawl.

OGGILBY

Beer?

SOUSÉ

Beer! Fishing in the stream that runs under the arboreal dell. A man comes up from the bar, dumps three thousand five hundred dollars in your lap for every nickel invested, says to you, “Sign here on the dotted line,” and then disappears in the waving fields of alfalfa.

OGGILBY

Gosh! Do you think he was telling the truth?

SOUSÉ

You don’t think a man would resort to taradiddle, do you? Why, he sobbed like a child at the very thought of disposing of these shares. How does a bank make its money?

OGGILBY

By investing.

SOUSÉ

That’s the point. You don’t want to work all your life. Take a chance. Take it while you’re young. My uncle, a balloon ascensionist, Effingham Huffnagle, took a chance. He was three miles and a half up in the air. He jumped out of the basket of the balloon and took a chance of alighting on a load of hay.

OGGILBY

Goll-ly! Did he make it?

SOUSÉ

Uh. . . no. He didn’t. Had he been a younger man, he probably would’ve made it. That’s the point. Don’t wait too long in life.

OGGILBY

I’ve never done anything like this, and for another thing, I haven’t got the money. Of course, my bonus comes due in four days — that’s five hundred dollars. I could buy ’em then. And then with all that money I made I really might be worthy of your daughter’s hand.

SOUSÉ

Women really appreciate the fine things in life. You don’t want to die and leave your wife and children paupers, do you? Borrow the five hundred dollars from the bank. You intend to pay it back when your bonus comes due, don’t you?

OGGILBY

Oh, sure.

SOUSÉ

Surely. Don’t be a luddy-duddy! Don’t be a moon-calf! Don’t be a jabber-nowl! You’re not those, are you?

OGGILBY

No. Well, I guess there’s no way you could confuse it with stealing, is there?

SOUSÉ

[Chuckling] Nothing could be more absurd.

OGGILBY

Well, all right, send him in.

Note that Sousé’s invented uncle is named Effingham Huffnagle, an alternative spelling of which might be F---ingham Huffnagle. Fields was always trying to slip double entendres past the Hollywood censor and frequently succeeded. Just one example in The Bank Dick (the title is another one), is when he says, “I don't hang around that Black Pussy Café for nothing.” Perhaps it was a slip of the tongue — “an inadvertent peccadillo,” Fields might call it — but based on the frequent appearance of pussycats in his movies I don’t think it was inadvertent at all.