It is a treasure not to be ignored when a movie that you never knew about featuring a favorite departed star turns up on video. It's one of the things video does best: giving us the opportunity to view fully restored movies, whether classics or not, that we would never have the opportunity to see any other way. Such a movie is SIX OF A KIND, directed in 1934 by Leo McCarey, featuring, among other pleasures, a fine supporting performance by W.C. Fields. Fields is a star whose work has been seriously neglected on video, and the only reason we're seeing him here and now is because the film also features George Burns and Gracie Allen (the video release of SIX OF A KIND is one of a package of three Burns & Allen films designed to capitalize on Burns's recent death). This is a minor note in the Fields canon -- pleasing, solid, but remarkable only for being previously unknown (to us, at any rate): a fresh new glimpse of Fields at the height of his career. Here, as a corrupt tank-town sheriff, Fields hits all of his trademark chords, and is allowed to steal the film out from under its nominal stars. Is there any modern comedian who could get an uninterrupted five minutes of comedy out of a pool stick, without ever making a shot? We think not.

If Uncle Billy is not to your taste, try Charlie Ruggles, Alison Skipworth and Burns & Allen on for size: Ruggles, known to people of my generation primarily as the voice of Aesop in Jay Ward's Aesop & Son cartoons, is a master of Timid Soul comedy; Skipworth, a wonderful and under-rated actress, specialized in crotchety old world-weary ex-cons -- she was paired with Fields once before in Tillie & Gus (still sadly unavailable on video); and Burns & Allen -- well, you know.

The story has Ruggles and his wife headed on a two-week road trip for their second honeymoon, with Burns & Allen riding along to "share expenses." The expected calamities occur right on schedule, and if SIX OF A KIND is never inspired it is never less than self-assured. We're not talking the Hope Diamond here -- this is a formula road comedy with its stars as its greatest asset. It may not be new, but it is new to us; what it delivers is 63 minutes of smiles -- and if that isn't worth $14.95, what is?

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