Poppy

Poppy
June 19, 1936
Paramount
Historical, Romance
DVD
C+

An odd sort of movie in that Fields, despite top billing, isn't in it much, due to illness.  Also, it's based on a silent film, in turn based on a stage play, both of which Fields starred in.  It's set in 1883, but that's not the only reason it feels very dated, with its hokey plot.  And once again, Fields has an eighteenish daughter who's loyal to him, this time the title character Poppy, although she turns out to be adopted.  Still, it's not without interest.  As he often does, Fields slips things past the censors, not just "Nuts!" for walnuts again, but calling Madame de Puizzi "Madame de Pussy."  And there's a prescient line when he advises Poppy to "never give a sucker an even break."  

Tom Kennedy was in Monkey Business.  Bill Wolfe would go on to The Bank Dick.