Pool Sharks (1915)

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Pool Sharks is a 1915 American silent short film. The film is notable for being the film acting and writing debut of W. C. Fields and also features early instances of stop-motion animation during a game of pool.

Production

It was one of two short films Fields made for a company called Gaumont, distributed by Mutual. He and Ross made another short around the same time, His Lordship's Dilemma.

Fields helped make this film in New York City, taking time off from the Ziegfeld Follies, as publicity for the film pointed out. Vaudeville was Fields' primary vocation, and after completing Pool Sharks and His Lordship's Dilemma it would be nine years before he made his next known film, 1924's Janice Meredith.

Fields wore his obviously fake moustache in this film, as he did in all of his silent films. His character and mannerisms bear some resemblance to Charlie Chaplin's, although the persona Fields later developed in his sound comedies is foreshadowed during the picnic scene, when Fields's character dumps a small child out of a chair so that he can steal it to get closer to the woman he is chasing.

Fields was an expert juggler. As with his early films, Pool Sharks was intended to highlight a pool ball juggling act that featured in the actor's vaudeville show. In the final film, however, there is only a brief shot of Fields juggling several billiard balls, as his act was largely replaced with several poorly edited stop motion sequences depicting impossible shots, such as the balls jumping off the table and re-racking themselves on the wall.

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