SOURCE: "The Confidence Man," in National Review, Vol. XX, No. 16, April 23, 1968, pp. 399-400.

In the following essay, Kenner presents Fields as a critic of the society in which he lived.

"The buyer tries to come back with a lower counter-offer. "You're crazy!' retorts Fields. "And you're drunk!' snaps the buyer. "Yes,' agrees Fields, "but I'll be sober tomorrow, and you'll be crazy for the rest of your life!'

—A detail from It's a Gift (1934), and in many ways an epitome of Fields, whose logic could be strangely difficult to fault. The reader who scents a fallacy will be wiser when he has tried to put a clear statement of what it is into, say, 200 words.

Fields coped in picture after picture with people—a whole population, except maybe an innocent girl or two—who would be crazy the rest of their lives and to...