This is quite possibly the crown jewel in the long and illustrious career of an extremely troubled and very funny man. Fields has a field day sending up a style of melodrama popular at the time. At one and the same time, this is atypical of Fields' work generally, but still has his fingerprints all over it as well. Highlights are far too numerous to list, but Fields's rendition of the song, "The Fatal Glass of Beer" (you can't really accurately call it singing),the running gag, "It ain't a fit night out for man or beast" and the ending are hilariously perfect, with a sense of timing of which Chaplin would have been proud. Most joyously recommended

This Mack Sennet produced comedy starred W. C. Fields and it was deliberately constructed like an old fashioned stage melodrama--complete with the same type music, sets and entrances. The concept was kind of funny, but after a while the single joke got kind of thin. However, there was an eventual payoff, as the ending of the film was terrific.

The story begins with Fields singing an annoying and bad song about the evils of strong drink(?!). This is where the title of the film was derived, but about 80% of the short occurred after this and was unrelated to the song, other than the fact it was all told as a giant morality tale against vice.

Not bad, but certainly not up to the standards of such Fields full-length classics as IT'S A GIFT and THE BANK DICK.

That Fatal Glass Of Beer refers to a glass that George Chandler took on a trip to the big city which led to a life of crime. This particular short subject for Mack Sennett that W.C. Fields did was one of his masterpieces.

It's not a series of gags although there are some good ones here including that recurring one where he goes to the cabin door and says it's not a fit night out for man nor beast and then gets hit with a blast of studio snow. But the film itself is a really good satire on all the Victorian morality plays that Fields grew up with in his youth.

Rosemary Theby as his wife and George Chandler as their son get a few laughs as well. Chandler left the Yukon wilds and went to the big city where demon rum got a hold of him and he robbed a bank of some bonds which he was carrying as a messenger.

Such stories were the staple of the theater while Fields grew up in the 1880s and 1890s. That Fatal Glass Of Beer is a great spoof on all of them. As one of the great tipplers of Hollywood, Fields had little patience with pompous moralizers. And remember Prohibition was coming to a close when That Fatal Glass Of Beer was made. People were very tired of the great experiment as it was called and this film no doubt found an eager audience.

Definitely the best of the short subjects of W.C. Fields.