Report from Cinevent 2007: RUNNING WILD (****) One of the few W.C. Fields silents NOT remade as a Paramount talkie-- though the setup is awfully close to The Man on the Flying Trapeze, with Fields as an office drudge with a messy desk and a wife and pampered stepson who have him beaten down. The turning point of the plot takes it in a more visual direction, though-- his inner lion is released by a hypnotist and he literally runs wild, delivering comeuppance to all his tormentors in a lengthy comedy-action sequence. It had the audience in stitches, and showed that while his silents lack one of the talkies' great assets-- his voice-- they also had sides of his persona lacking in the films made when he was older and less agile.
Review of Running Wild
