The Bank Dick (1940) in Color — Starring W.C. Fields & Cora Witherspoon

The Bank Dick (1940) — Buy This Classic in Color

Discover The Bank Dick, Edward F. Cline’s 1940 comedy masterpiece starring the incomparable W.C. Fields, now available as a professionally colorized version. Own this classic movie in color as a DRM-free MP4 digital download for just €15.00.

Plot Summary

In the sleepy small town of Lompoc, California, Egbert Sousé (W.C. Fields) — a name he insists must be pronounced with the accent on the final syllable — is the town’s most magnificently useless citizen, a perpetually besotted, elaborately pompous failure who has never held a job for more than a few days and whose principal occupations consist of nursing drinks at the Black Pussy Cat Café, avoiding his ferocious mother-in-law, dodging his contemptuous wife Agatha (Cora Witherspoon), and spinning grandiose fantasies about the brilliant career that circumstances have somehow conspired to deny him.

Egbert’s fortunes take an absurd turn when, in the midst of one of his characteristic sidewalk reveries, a bank robber fleeing with a sack of cash literally runs into him, and Sousé’s accidental obstruction of the criminal’s escape is hailed as deliberate heroism by the grateful townspeople. Rewarded with the prestigious title of bank detective — the “Bank Dick” — Egbert settles into his new position with characteristic bluster, patrolling the bank’s marble halls with an air of supreme authority while understanding absolutely nothing about security, finance, or law enforcement. His new status emboldens him to pressure his hapless future son-in-law Og Oggilby (Grady Sutton) into embezzling five hundred dollars from the bank to invest in a worthless mining stock called Beefsteak Mines, a scheme that spirals into mounting catastrophe when a bank examiner named J. Pinkerton Snoopington (Franklin Pangborn) arrives for a surprise audit. What follows is a magnificent cascade of escalating deceptions, frantic improvisations, and inspired comic set pieces — including Sousé’s increasingly desperate attempts to incapacitate the bank examiner through spiked drinks, a wild automobile chase through the California countryside, and a climactic confrontation with a second bank robber — all building to an impossibly lucky happy ending that rewards Egbert’s shameless incompetence with wealth, respect, and the grudging admiration of the family that has spent years denouncing him as a worthless dreamer.

Cast & Crew

Director: Edward F. Cline

Stars: W.C. Fields, Cora Witherspoon, Una Merkel, Evelyn Del Rio, Jessie Ralph, Franklin Pangborn, Shemp Howard, Dick Purcell, Grady Sutton, Russell Hicks

W.C. Fields delivers what many critics consider the supreme performance of his career, his incomparable combination of magnificent pomposity, mumbled asides, physical comedy, and surreal verbal invention reaching its absolute peak in a character who is simultaneously a complete fraud and a genuinely lovable human being. Franklin Pangborn is brilliantly fussy as the unfortunate bank examiner whose professional composure is systematically demolished. Grady Sutton brings sweet, helpless comic pathos to the dim-witted Og Oggilby. Fields himself wrote the screenplay under the immortal pseudonym Mahatma Kane Jeeves, revealing the same anarchic wit that fuels every frame of the film.

Why Buy This Classic in Color?

The Bank Dick was originally filmed in black and white, capturing the visual style of small-town America with typical studio craftsmanship. This professionally colorized restoration brings frame-by-frame precision to the warm wooden interiors of the bank, the inviting amber glow of the Black Pussy Cat Café, the sun-drenched California streets, the dusty brown roads of the climactic car chase, and the expressive palette of Fields’s memorable wardrobe. The colorized version adds visual depth and atmospheric intensity to this restored classic film, enhancing the contrast between the respectable small-town setting and the magnificent chaos that Egbert Sousé inflicts upon it. Now also available in colour.

Buy The Bank Dick in color today for just €15.00. Your DRM-free MP4 download is available for instant access.

Historical Significance

The Bank Dick is universally regarded as W.C. Fields’s finest achievement and one of the greatest American comedies ever made. Released in 1940 at the peak of Fields’s career, the film distills his unique comic genius — the suspicion of authority, the celebration of magnificent fraud, the war between respectability and anarchic individualism — into a perfectly constructed seventy-two minutes. Fields wrote the screenplay himself, and his fingerprints are on every line of dialogue, every sight gag, and every moment of inspired absurdity. The film has been selected for preservation by the United States National Film Registry as culturally significant. Through colorization, this comedy masterpiece is preserved for modern audiences.

Technical Details

• Format: MP4 digital download
• Resolution: HD restored
• Colorized: Professionally colorized from original black and white
• Audio: Original mono restored
• Runtime: Approximately 72 minutes
• DRM-free: Yes — watch on any device
• Instant download: Available immediately after purchase
• Price: €15.00

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Movie-Specific Questions

Q: Is The Bank Dick considered W.C. Fields’s best film?
A: Yes, The Bank Dick is widely regarded by critics and audiences as the supreme achievement of Fields’s career, perfectly distilling his unique comic genius into a masterpiece of American comedy.

Q: Did W.C. Fields write the screenplay?
A: Yes, Fields wrote the screenplay under the memorable pseudonym Mahatma Kane Jeeves, filling it with his distinctive blend of pompous wordplay, anarchic plot twists, and surreal comic invention.

Q: How does colorization enhance this comedy classic?
A: Colorization brings warm visual life to the small-town California setting — the inviting saloon, the marble bank interiors, the sun-drenched streets, and the dusty chase sequences — enhancing the contrast between respectable surfaces and the magnificent chaos beneath.

Digital Download Questions

Q: What format is the download?
A: The film is delivered as an MP4 file compatible with virtually any device or media player.

Q: Is there DRM on the file?
A: No. The download is completely DRM-free so you can watch it on any device without restrictions.

Q: How quickly can I watch after purchase?
A: Your download link is available instantly after payment, so you can start watching within minutes.

Related Colorized Classics

• My Man Godfrey (1936)
• Bringing Up Baby (1938)
• Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)
• Mississippi (1935)
• Duck Soup (1933)