Lightnin'

Louise Dresser owns and operates a hotel which the California-Nevada runs through. She has an offer to buy it from businessmen who offer to pay for it with stock. Her husband, Will Rogers, thinks it a swindle and won't let her sell, so she starts divorce proceedings.

I don't think anyone ever went to a Will Rogers film for anything but Rogers. Given that he was Fox's biggest star in this period, they gave him ample budgets, fine co-stars - here it's Louise Dresser playing, as she often did, his wife, Joel McCrea and Helen Cohan as young lovers, and Jason Robards as a crooked lawyer - and the best directors. Here it's Henry King, tending his favored patch of small-town Americana.

Rogers gets off some of his amiable quips and tall tales, but King lets him hesitate and grumble over his lines too often for my taste. Still, there's real chemistry between him and Miss Dresser, and the other performers get some nice performances in. It's certainly not the best of Rogers' vehicles, but I don't care. I came to see him, and I did.

"Lightnin'" was originally a comedy play by Winchell Smith and Frank Bacon. It opened on Broadway in 1918, with co-author Bacon in the starring role as Lightnin' Bill Jones. The comedy was a smash hit and was, for several decades, one of Broadway's longest-running plays ... a long run that was interrupted only by the actors' strike to support the creation of Actors Equity, during which Frank Bacon and his castmates drove up Broadway with picket signs reading "Lightnin' has struck!". A 1925 silent-film version of "Lightnin'", directed by John Ford, was nothin' much.

The 1930 sound-film version of "Lightnin'", by the immensely under-rated director Henry King, stars Will Rogers as Bill Jones, a shiftless slowpoke who is sardonically nicknamed "Lightnin'". His wife Mary owns and operates an hotel which straddles the California-Nevada state line, and which exploits that quirk to drum up business ... mostly among divorcees who can check into this hotel to establish Nevada residency without leaving California. Mary Jones (Louise Dresser) works hard to keep the hotel making a bare profit, but her husband Lightnin' offers nothing except his folksy opinions. (Will Rogers improvised much of his dialogue in this movie, as he did throughout his talking-film career.) Their daughter Milly is played by Helen Cohan, real-life daughter of George M. Cohan. Miss Cohan is pretty, but no actress.

Joel McCrea, always an under-rated actor, plays handsome young John Marvin, who has been framed for embezzlement, and now must elude the law by hiding in the Jones hotel and taking advantage of its geographic quirk. When a California sheriff shows up at the California side of the hotel with a California arrest warrant, Marvin simply walks across to the Nevada side of the hotel (thereby crossing the state line) and vice versa.

Eventually, Mrs Jones sues her shiftless husband Lightnin' for divorce, which leads to a climactic courtroom scene in which Will Rogers gets to spout folksy aphorisms. (He claims that China has the best solution for divorce, because in China they drown all the girl babies. No comment.) "Lightnin'" has some interest as a film record of a stage play that was popular in its time, but that play is now unworthy of revival. Lightnin' doesn't strike twice. Will Rogers has always been over-rated; I enjoy his performances, but Rogers supposedly embodies or symbolises the American people in some way that I just don't see at all.

I can't see any great reason to recommend this film to anybody except die-hard Will Rogers' fans

Before I review the film let me say this. GManfred from Ramsey, NJ, posting in 2010, comments in his review of the film thus: "As I roam about the website I will make note of similar films with preposterous grades which are not substantiated by user reviews or common sense. I look for ratings on Public Domain films. If they were rated so highly, they would not be in Public Domain." Fair enough, I take his point about inflated ratings. But if he is going on his crusade using Public Domain as his yardstick then he knows little about copyright. His Girl Friday (1940), My Man Godfrey (1936), Rain (1932), Algiers (1938) and many more classic movies are in the public domain not because they are bad films but through particular circumstances (neglect to renew copyright, etc). You can't judge movies this way, it's ridiculous.

Anyway, to my review. I enjoyed this movie not because of the plot or writing but because it's always enjoyable to see people like Will Rogers, Louise Dresser, Joel McRae and others.

If you don't know who these people are then you probably won't enjoy the film. It's mildly amusing in places but not enough so to hold your attention if you're not already a fan of old movies.

I'd rate it a 6 for the actors although I guess it really only deserves a 4 or 5.

Someone has, with allies, been 'stuffing the ballot box' for films needing votes to qualify for a rating. I suspect this is one - and not the first - especially in view of the lukewarm user review. Guardians of this website should check this out.

As I roam about the website I will make note of similar films with preposterous grades which are not substantiated by user reviews or common sense. I look for ratings on Public Domain films. If they were rated so highly, they would not be in Public Domain.

This does a disservice to readers and to the website as well, as IMDb may be the best site of its kind extant.