Running Wild (DVD)

A browbeaten W.C. Fields gains the roaring courage of a lion thanks to a vaudeville hypnotist in Running Wild (1927), a raucously funny silent comedy. Fields stars as Elmer Finch, a meek accountant nagged by his wife, harassed by his children, and awed by his boss. After he accidentally throws a horseshoe through a window, the cops are on his tail, and a suitably ridiculous chain of events puts him under the thrall of hypnosis, where he believes himself to be a lion. With newly leonine strength he visits all those who shamed and bullied him, and tries to get a raise in the process. Written and directed by the legendarily witty Gregory La Cava (My Man Godfrey), Running Wild is a non-stop laugh riot.