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Never Give a Sucker an Even Break

1941 film by Edward F. Cline

Never Give a Sucker an Even Break is a 1941 film about a man who wants to sell a film story to Esoteric Studios. On the way he gets insulted by little boys, beat up for ogling a woman, and abused by a waitress.

Directed by Edward F. Cline. Written by Prescott Chaplin, W.C. Fields (as Otis Criblecoblis), and John T. Neville.

The Great Man, W.C. Fields/Uncle Bill

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  • [to a pretty girl] Hi ya tootie-pie. Everything under control? [the girl's boyfriend punches him] All five of 'em hit me at once.
  • [after a waitress pours water in his lap] No extra charge for the cold shower I hope.
  • I don't know why I ever come in here - The flies get the best of everything.
  • [about a large Turkish passenger] Do you travel as one person or do you get a party rate of ten?
  • [offering a cure for insomnia] Get plenty of sleep. That's what the doctor told me.
  • [after falling from a plane, and landing on a mattress] Why didn't I think of that parachute? What a bump!
  • [to Gloria Jean] Don't you want to live in this beautiful nest, have a personal maid, wear a diaphanous gown, and eat regularly?
  • I feel as though somebody stepped on my tongue with muddy feet.
  • There's no sense arguing with a woman.
  • Lucky we didn't have an accident...We'd never have made it.

Mr. Pangborn

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  • This script is an insult to a man's intelligence - even mine...It's impossible, inconceivable, incomprehensible, and besides that, it's no good. And as for the continuity, it's terrible.
  • Marvelous. Wonderful. Amazing. The girl has been living on a mountaintop since she was three months old and for no reason at all, suddenly blossoms out with Jump and Jive. Do you actually think I'm a dope? Now don't you answer that.

Others

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  • Peter Carson: If that girl is as beautiful as you say, I'll scale the wall tomorrow.
  • Ouliotta Delight Hemoglobin: [after kissing Peter Carson] You must be a professional.
  • Gloria Jean: My Uncle Bill...But I still love him.

Dialogue

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Fields (to a heckling youngster): You're about to fall heir to a kitten stocking.
Kid: What's a kitten stocking?
Fields: A sock on the puss!
Fields: Is there any goulash on this menu?
Waitress: [wiping a spot off the menu] It's roast beef gravy.
Waitress: And another thing. You're always squawking about something. If it isn't the steak, it's something else.
Fields: I didn't squawk about the steak, dear. I merely said I didn't see that old horse that used to be tethered outside here.
Waitress: You're as funny as a cry for help.
Fields: You used to be an old Follies girl?
Waitress: You know, there's something awfully big about you. [pause] Your nose.
Fields: [Looking at her rear end] There's something awfully big about you too.
Waitress: And another thing, don't be so free with your hands.
Fields: Listen honey. I was only trying to guess your weight. You take things too seriously.
Receptionist: [talking on the phone] You big hotty-dottie. You smoke vile cigars all day and drink whiskey half the night. Someday, you'll drown in a vat of whiskey.
Fields: Drown in a vat of whiskey. Death where is thy sting?
Flight Attendant: Are you air sick?
Fields: Somebody put too many olives in my martinis last night.
Gloria Jean: Why didn't you ever marry?
Fields: I was in love with a beautiful blonde once, dear. She drove me to drink. That's the one thing I'm indebted to her for.
Ouliotta: Are you really a man?
Fields: Well, I've been called other things.
Mrs. Hemoglobin: Men. Men. They're all alike. They'll deceive you as your father did me. He kissed a chorus girl and when I found out he said, 'Oh, I was drunk and didn't know what I was doing.'
Ouliotta: Do you think he drinks?
Mrs. Hemoglobin: He didn't get that nose from playing ping-pong.
Peter Carson: [about Mrs. Hemoglobin] She has a bank roll so big a greyhound couldn't leap over it.
Fields: She seemed like an awfully nice woman to me.
Gloria Jean: We're falling two thousand feet!
Fields: All right, dear. Don't start worrying until we get down to one-thousand, nine-hundred, and ninety-nine. It's the last foot that's dangerous.
Gloria Jean: But how can you look out for me when I'm here and you're way down there?
Fields: You want to go to school, don't you?...You want to grow up and be dumb like ZaSu Pitts?
Radio report: ...two crooks who have just held up the bank for one hundred and fifty thousand...that is all.
Fields: That is all? A hundred and fifty thousand. That's all. It ain't hay, is it?
Radio report: ...One crook - slight build, evidently a jockey, has a horse scar behind his left ear...other crook has corn teeth, cauliflower ear, apple-red cheeks, mutton-chop whiskers.
Fields: Sounds like a full-course dinner to me! What? No apple pie?

Cast

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