You Can’t Cheat an Honest Man
E894922
"You Can’t Cheat an Honest Man" is a 1939 American comedy film starring W. C. Fields as a shady circus owner entangled in a series of farcical misadventures.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| You Can’t Cheat an Honest Man canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T10953981 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: You Can’t Cheat an Honest Man Context triple: [W. C. Fields, notableWork, You Can’t Cheat an Honest Man]
-
A.
There Was a Crooked Man
"There Was a Crooked Man" is a British comedy film featuring Norman Wisdom in one of his characteristic comic roles.
-
B.
The Best a Man Can Get
"The Best a Man Can Get" is a famous Gillette advertising slogan associated with its razor and men's grooming products campaigns worldwide.
-
C.
Coward Chance
Coward Chance was a prominent British law firm that later became part of the global legal practice Clifford Chance.
-
D.
Ballad of a Thin Man
"Ballad of a Thin Man" is a dark, surreal Bob Dylan song known for its biting critique of clueless establishment figures and its haunting, piano-driven sound.
-
E.
A Man’s a Man
"A Man’s a Man" is an early satirical play by Bertolt Brecht that explores themes of identity, dehumanization, and the malleability of the individual within militaristic and capitalist systems.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: You Can’t Cheat an Honest Man Target entity description: "You Can’t Cheat an Honest Man" is a 1939 American comedy film starring W. C. Fields as a shady circus owner entangled in a series of farcical misadventures.
-
A.
There Was a Crooked Man
"There Was a Crooked Man" is a British comedy film featuring Norman Wisdom in one of his characteristic comic roles.
-
B.
The Best a Man Can Get
"The Best a Man Can Get" is a famous Gillette advertising slogan associated with its razor and men's grooming products campaigns worldwide.
-
C.
Coward Chance
Coward Chance was a prominent British law firm that later became part of the global legal practice Clifford Chance.
-
D.
Ballad of a Thin Man
"Ballad of a Thin Man" is a dark, surreal Bob Dylan song known for its biting critique of clueless establishment figures and its haunting, piano-driven sound.
-
E.
A Man’s a Man
"A Man’s a Man" is an early satirical play by Bertolt Brecht that explores themes of identity, dehumanization, and the malleability of the individual within militaristic and capitalist systems.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (48)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
American comedy film
ⓘ
film ⓘ |
| alsoKnownAs | You Can't Cheat an Honest Man NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| basedOn | radio sketches by W. C. Fields ⓘ |
| blackAndWhite | true ⓘ |
| character |
Charlie McCarthy (ventriloquist dummy)
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
Edgar Bergen (as himself) NERFINISHED ⓘ Larsen E. Whipsnade NERFINISHED ⓘ Vicky Whipsnade NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| cinematographyBy | Milton R. Krasner NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin |
United States of America
ⓘ
surface form:
United States
|
| director |
Edward F. Cline
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
George Abbott NERFINISHED ⓘ George Marshall NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| distributor | Universal Pictures ⓘ |
| editedBy | Arthur Hilton NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| era |
Hollywood Golden Age
ⓘ
surface form:
Golden Age of Hollywood
|
| featuresVentriloquism | true GENERATED ⓘ |
| genre | comedy film ⓘ |
| hasTagline | "You can’t cheat an honest man, but it’s fun trying!" ⓘ |
| hasTheme |
con artistry
ⓘ
romantic misunderstanding ⓘ |
| medium | theatrical feature film ⓘ |
| musicBy | Frank Skinner NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| notableFor | pairing W. C. Fields with ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and his dummy Charlie McCarthy ⓘ |
| originalLanguage | English ⓘ |
| partOf | W. C. Fields filmography NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| plotSummary | A shady circus owner, Larsen E. Whipsnade, becomes entangled in romantic and financial misadventures involving his daughter and a ventriloquist. ⓘ |
| producer | Lester Cowan NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| productionCompany | Universal Pictures ⓘ |
| publicationDate | 1939-02-10 ⓘ |
| releaseYear | 1939 ⓘ |
| runtimeMinutes | 79 ⓘ |
| screenwriter |
Charles Bogle
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
Everett Freeman NERFINISHED ⓘ George Marion Jr. NERFINISHED ⓘ Richard Mack NERFINISHED ⓘ William Morrow NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| setIn | circus ⓘ |
| starring |
Charlie McCarthy
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
Constance Moore NERFINISHED ⓘ Eddie "Rochester" Anderson NERFINISHED ⓘ Edgar Bergen NERFINISHED ⓘ James Burke NERFINISHED ⓘ John Arledge NERFINISHED ⓘ Thurston Hall NERFINISHED ⓘ W. C. Fields NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| title | You Can’t Cheat an Honest Man NERFINISHED ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: You Can’t Cheat an Honest Man Description of subject: "You Can’t Cheat an Honest Man" is a 1939 American comedy film starring W. C. Fields as a shady circus owner entangled in a series of farcical misadventures.
Referenced by (1)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.