Pompous ass Harold Bloom calls this the greatest film of all time, and I see what he means. It's an elaborate parody of the then-current northern melodrama - the family in the cabin worryin' and cryin', milking the elk amid the sloppy-cut rear projections, mushing the dachshund, spilling a hatful of soap flakes in the soup. W. C. Fields is an a-hole the way Eminem is an a-hole, it's a floating theme. He also plays the dulcimer with his mits on, narrates the tale of the salvation army girl who high-kicked his son in the forehead, "A trick she'd learned before she had been saved," has a crying fit with a mouth full of crackers. And more - all in eighteen minutes. It rocks!