A Micro-Genre: The "As Himself" Film

 

Oh, would some Power give us the gift

To see ourselves as others see us!

It would from many a blunder free us,

And foolish notion:

What airs in dress and gait would leave us,

And even devotion!

"To A Louse, On Seeing One on a Lady's Bonnet at Church" 

 -- Robert Burns, 1786 

Over the past century, we've become used to many tropes of filmmaking. One of the most pervasive, if easily overlooked casting habits, is getting celebrities to portray themselves on screen. 

There are three types of "As Himself" films: having a person recreate an event on film that originally made them famous; surprising the audience with a brief cameo; and creating a caricature of the celebrity's public persona. 

The first type is easy enough to recognize: Babe Ruth saying farewell to Lou Gehrig in Pride of the Yankees; Audie Murphy acting out his WWII exploits in To Hell and Back -- these are obvious roles. There are also odd crossover roles, where a celebrity acts as a narrator to explain a plot point. A great example of this is Margot Robbie in The Big Short, where she gives a quick lesson in subprime mortgages to the audience while taking a bubble bath. 

The second category, the celebrity cameo, is probably the most frequently seen "As Himself" outing in films. The cameo is a pop-up surprise for viewers, not expecting a real person playing themselves in a film (typically a comedy). The examples are numerous: Merv Griffin in The Man with Two Brains; Donald Trump in Home Alone 2; Marcel Marceau in Silent Movie; Keanu Reeves in Always be My Maybe; Stan Lee in Mallrats; Elton John in The Spice Girls Movie; Tom Jones in Mars Attacks!; Ed Sheeran in Yesterday - - all these films give the audience pause to say, "wait a minute - what are THEY doing in this movie?"

The third version is the meatiest use of a celebrity appearance in a film: the caricature role. Entire plotlines are structured around a fictional biography of a real person: John Malkovich in Being John Malkovich; Nicolas Cage in The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent; Bruce Campbell in My Name is Bruce!; and Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Last Action Hero.

My favorite caricature movie featuring an actor playing himself is W.C. Fields in Universal Pictures' 1941 feature, Never Give a Sucker an Even Break. Written by Fields himself (using the pen name Otis Criblecoblis), the story imagines a surreal series of events in the actor's efforts to write and star in a motion picture. 

Fields builds not-too-subtle barbs at Universal Pictures into the screenplay, making fun of a fictional producer, Franklin Pangborn. Pangborn can't stand the script Fields is pitching, which is acted out on-screen as Pangborn complains about the plot holes and ridiculous nature of the story. 

I really don't want to give away too many scenes in this film, as it's best experienced rather than described. Let's just say there are some silent-era car chases and mayhem typical of Fields' sense of humor. The banter between Fields and the curmudgeonly characters he interacts with throughout the film provides most of the comedy. It's a beautiful, rough-and-tumble slapstick script, and arguably one of Fields' most representative films of his comedic genius. 

Do you have a favorite "As Himself" film? Let me know in the comments.