From Silent to Sound

Abstract

Fields’s next film, You’re Telling Me was a remake of his silent picture, So’s Your Old Man. The redo represents the first time Fields made a sound version of one of his silent movies. Converting his silent movies to an aural medium became a perennial habit during his post-1933 film career. A comparison of So’s Your Old Man with You’re Telling Me demonstrates why the development of sound was so critical to Fields’s later success. The plot of So’s Your Old Man is mostly repeated in the sound film. Unlike the silent version, moviegoers can hear the annoying noises that distract Bisbee’s golf game and hear Fields’s inimitable voice reacting to the disturbances. You’re Telling Me illustrates why Fields was more successful in his sound comedies than his silent ones. During the plot, Bisbee morphs from a bungling dabbler in gadgets and a social outcast who lives on the wrong side of the tracks to a successful inventor lauded by the town citizenry. Numerous films culminate in this manner—a ne’er-do-well underdog who triumphs in the end. But Bisbee, despite his wealth, refuses to succumb to the superficial values of the snobs in small-town America. Left alone at his mansion, he is reunited with his two drinking buddies. The three happy pals walk away as the screen fades to black, concluding one of Fields’s finest performances.