It has been more than a century since the first pool movie was filmed. While some billiard enthusiasts credit the 1915 short Pool Sharks with originating the pool movie genre, the true trailblazer is Frank Wilson’s Billiards Mad, an English comedic short filmed in 1912 in which a man dreams he plays billiards in unlikely places. Wilson was a prolific director, making more than 250 shorts between 1910 and 1920. Unfortunately, little appears to be known about Billiards Mad, and, to my knowledge, no copies are in distribution.
A year after Billiards Mad was released, the first American-made pool movie came out. Wilfred Lucas’ silent comedy, A Game of Pool (also known as The Pool Shark) was released on August 7, 1913, as part of a split reel that also featured his film The Latest in Life Saving. Here again, unfortunately, little seems to be known about this short, and, to my knowledge, no copies are in distribution.
Perhaps then it is no surprise that the film commonly deemed the “first pool movie” is the 10-minute silent movie Pool Sharks, released September 9, 1915. This short is the acting and writing debut of William Claude Dunkenfield, better known as W.C. Fields, the legendary comedian, actor, juggler, poker player and billiards player. Fortunately, this film is widely available online, as well as on DVD as part of the W.C. Fields “6 Short Films” Criterion Collection.
The movie’s premise is simple: two men are vying for the attention of a woman. Their squabble moves from the outdoor picnic area to the indoor billiards room, where the men shoot a series of impossible trick shots, before the game turns into billiard-ball throwing mayhem. The film’s antics are classic W.C. Fields, though the pool, a mish-mash of stop-motion animation and prop tables, ironically does not show Fields playing pool, even though his biographers indicate he was an expert player, taught by hustlers and pros he met doing vaudeville.
Pool Sharks was not only an auspicious debut for Fields, but it was the precursor to films that featured far funnier pool scenes with his famous crooked cue stick. Though neither his Six of a Kind (1934) nor The Big Broadcast of 1938 meet my purist definition of a billiards movie, they both, as shown below, include wonderfully humorous pool scenes with the crooked cue. Enjoy and laugh out loud.
A few observations on this: 1. W.C. clearly had a pretty good arm. 2. 3 goldfish were harmed in the making of this film. 3. Most anecdotally, my grandfather (aka your great grandfather), Eddie Clarke, met W.C. in vaudeville. There is no word whether they juggled together or merely shot billiards.
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