The Dentist

A W.C. Fields comedy short directed by Leslie Pearce for Paramount. Fields plays Dr. Painless Peters, a dentist whose methods are anything but painless. The film is a series of escalating comic set pieces as Fields torments his patients, argues with his daughter's suitor, and pursues a golf game with characteristic misanthropy. The dental gags are both horrifying and hilarious, with Fields wielding oversized pliers and extracting teeth from the wrong patients. The film showcases Fields' genius for combining physical comedy with verbal wit, and his persona as the bumbling, irritable professional would become a template for much of his later work. The film is in the public domain.