You Can't Cheat An Honest Man

W. C. Fields and Edgar Bergan were paid $100,000 each. Fields was paid an additional $25,000 for writing the script.

W. C. Fields became a big hit on radio, especially on Edgar Bergan 's radio program, where he had a long-running "feud" with Charlie McCarthy. This film was an attempt to capitalize on the popularity of that feud by having it carried on in a movie.

Legend has it that on the set of You Can't Cheat an Honest Man (1939), a stagehand was cleaning out W. C. Fields ' dressing room and accidentally bumped into a table on which Fields had placed a bottle of whiskey. He caught the bottle before it hit the floor, but the cork had popped out and he couldn't find it. He placed the bottle back on the table and left. Later Fields came back to the dressing room, and a few minutes after-wards stormed out, roaring "Who took the cork out of my lunch?"

Cast of You Can't Cheat An Honest Man

W.C. Fields - Larson E. Whipsnade
Edgar Bergen - Himself
Constance Moore - Vicky Whipsnade