All in the Family

Abstract

As Ambrose Wolfinger in Man on the Flying Trapeze (a remake of his silent, Running Wild), Fields returns to playing the milquetoast husband accosted by a shrewish wife (Kathleen Howard), a nasty mother-in-law, and a ne’er-do-well son, named Claude after his own son. His daughter, Hope (Mary Brian), is the only one who respects him. Ambrose joins singing burglars in the basement drinking applejack and is arrested for making applejack without a license. Wolfinger is a memory expert much needed in his company for his ability to find files. Hoping to attend a wrestling match, he is hit by a wrestler outside the auditorium and thrown to the street. Back home he has an altercation with Claude and knocks him out. Suddenly, he is no longer a weakling. His boss increases his salary and gives him a four-week vacation. This is Fields’s best film about a dysfunctional family. After completing the movie, an exhausted Fields fell ill and needed to go to a nearby health spa to get better. Newspaper columnists thought Fields would never return to do another picture.