A lot of folks think Never Give a Sucker an Even Break (1941) was W.C. Fields' best movie. Less arguable is that it was his last starring vehicle and I think the last time he ever participated in the writing of a movie he was in. The few films he made after it before passing away in '46 were glorified cameos in other folks' flicks…and the best of these appearances was cut and never seen by audiences of the time.
We're talking about Tales of Manhattan, a 1942 "anthology" movie with different writers and casts for each of five stories. It was originally six but one whole story was cut and it was the one that featured Fields and also Phil Silvers and Margaret Dumont. Many years later, this footage was found and here it is for your viewing pleasure.
Silvers told me the following story about it: It was shot on a tight schedule and the producers were concerned because Fields was taking swigs from a thermos he'd brought to the set. They presumed it was booze, went to him and begged him not to drink during shooting. He was promised all the alcohol he could consume if he would only abstain until the end of principal photography — an offer which could have made the film go farther overbudget than Heaven's Gate.
Mr. Fields denied he was tippling. He explained to them that it was only lemonade and he was drinking it to settle a small stomach problem. Then he turned to Mr. Silvers, poured him a drink from the thermos and asked him to taste it and affirm that it was indeed lemonade.
Silvers sipped, tasted pure gin and told the producers, "It's lemonade all right." There was a certain amount of Bilko in Phil Silvers even before he played that character and there was a certain amount of gin in W.C. Fields most of the time. Here's that story that was cut from Tales of Manhattan. It's fun but not as interesting as the story about the thermos…
