Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Rio Hayward All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Allison Davies The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Jackson Booth-Millard I found this film listed in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, and I recognised the name of the leading legendary comedy actor, so I was looking forward to what it had to offer, directed by Norman Z. McLeod (Monkey Business, Pennies from Heaven, The Paleface). Basically Harold Bissonette (W.C. Fields) ("pronounced biss-on-ay") is the owner of a general grocery store, he decides to give up his business after he inherits some money, and to move to California and run an orange grove. Bissonette packs up and drives out to California, despite the objections of his family, nagging wife Amelia (Kathleen Howard), self-involved daughter Mildred (Jean Rouverol) and bothersome son Norman (Tommy Bupp), he also gets the news that the land he has purchased is worthless. Bissonette's wife softens and figures he made a good purchase after they have passed several prosperous orange groves, it is confirmed his barren plot contains only a tumbledown shack, and a tumbleweed, his disgusted wife and children walk out on him, his car collapses under his weight as he sits on it. There is a point when Harold is forced by Amelia to sleep on the porch, he spends a length amount of time trying to get comfortable on the hanging bench, and distracted by various loud noises and calamities around him, until finally the bench collapses. However Harold's luck changes when a neighbour informs him that a developer is desperate to acquire his land to build a race track grandstand, Harold stands up for himself, and up to his nagging wife, he holds out for a large sum of money. The film ends with Harold squeezing an orange for juice into a glass, his family are happy are family and take off in their new car, the now content Harold pours a flask of booze into the small amount of orange juice. Also starring Julian Madison as John Durston, Baby LeRoy as Baby Dunk, Tammany Young as Everett Ricks, Morgan Wallace as James Fitchmueller, Charles Sellon as Mr. Muckle, Josephine Whittell as Mrs. Dunk and T. Roy Barnes as Insurance Salesman. Fields became popular for his comic persona as a misanthropic and hard-drinking egotist, he is certainly likable despite snarling a lot of the time, I will be honest and say I had to concentrate to get the story, but the long sustained porch sequence is a great sketch, and there is a fabulously funny sequence with a blind man walking across a busy road, all in all a worthwhile classic comedy. Good!

dimplet It's hard to rate an old movie like this because they don't make 'em like this anymore. And while Fields does a fine job, most of the rest of the acting is pretty bad; I did like the old blind guy, though. For today's audiences, I'm afraid the rating is not so high as it would have been if I were watching this back in 1934. But then, it might have looked better in a big, dark movie theater with an audience and a bucket of popcorn on a Saturday afternoon, than alone on my laptop. It's easier to laugh when there are other people laughing around you. And in 1934, people needed all the excuses for laughter they could get. There's not much of a script or plot here; It's a Gift probably has about the fewest words for a movie since the silent days. There aren't many of the trademark clever comebacks and double entendres from Fields. What it does have is a long-suffering, hen pecked W.C. Fields. This time around he is the normal human being in the story, while everyone else around him is obnoxious. Normal? Any other (modern) normal person would slug this wife, or at least divorce her. I couldn't help but think about how divorce was nearly as illegal as abortion back then. Yet, Fields doesn't lose his temper. And what makes It's a Gift funny, or at least interesting, is the way Fields conveys his suppressed desire to strangle everyone in his family wordlessly through what would today be called body language. He moves slowly, but every part of his motion conveys emotion. And you know what he's going through. The scenes of suffering drag on and on, masochistically, and without any music soundtrack, such as Fields trying to shave with a cut throat razor while his daughter preens and gargles at the sink, or Fields trying to sleep on the porch, as a coconut slowly rattles and bangs down every step of the stairs. It is the very slowness of these scenes that makes them so deliciously tormenting. Fields is conveying humor by manipulating time, slowing it down to a painful crawl. I can't imagine anyone standing for that in a modern hyperkinetic movie, which is a shame. Of all the W.C. Fields films, in this one his humor most resembles the slow and sad Buster Keaton. I could easily see Keaton playing this role. Too bad Keaton self-destructed with the advent of talkies, though he did eventually make a comeback around 1960 with an appearance on a time- travel episode of The Twilight Zone. As to Fields, I do not think this is his funniest or most characteristic film. My favorite Fields movie, by far, is International House, which I've seen many times. Many of his funniest works are shorts. And some wonderful excerpts can be viewed on youtube, among them, Fields playing his unique style of ping pong. And then there's David Copperfield (1935) with Fields playing Micawber. The great Charles Laughton turned down this role, saying he could not do it justice, and recommended Fields, instead. It's astonishing to think that there are people who have never heard of W.C. Fields. But if this were his only movie, it would be understandable.

fenian2153 There are enough sight gags and brilliant lines of dialog to keep your average college film class busy all year. While it's true that "It's a Gift" has many classic comedy moments, the scene that makes this film special to me is a poignant one. It's late in the story: Harold (Fields) realizes that his dream of owning an orange grove in California has literally crumbled in front of him. His wife and kids have left him. His one lifeline, the family car, has fallen to pieces. With his world in ruins, Fields sits on the front stoop of his "ranch house". And the last friend he has in this world, a dog, comes up and licks his face. It's been fifty years since I first saw this film and that scene still brings tears to my eyes.

Neil Doyle There are so many funny sequences in IT'S A GIFT that it's no wonder W.C. FIELDS became a legend among screen comics with his gift for physical comedy.KATHERINE HOWARD as his nagging wife with a penchant for non-stop talking, is a great foil for his brand of comedy. And the bathroom scene at the start, is a standout of comic timing by all concerned, as Fields attempts to shave by a mirror over the sink as all sorts of interferences from his family leads to hilarious hi-jinks.CHARLES SELLON does a wacky and wonderful job as the blind man who almost single-handedly destroys Fields' grocery store. And once Fields and his family get on the road to California to buy an orange grove, the sight gags continue in fast and furious fashion.On the negative side, BABY SANDY has so little to do that you have to wonder why he became so popular at the time. Undoubtedly one of Fields' best films of the '30s, a bundle of laughs from start to finish.