State Fair

The thing about summer love is that it is uncertain and often temporary. Normally, only the young are afflicted, and, as such a powerful emotion is a novelty to the recipient, it can be very hurtful. "State Fair" chronicles two of these.

The Frake family is preparing for the Iowa state fair, all with different expectations. Pa (Will Rogers) hopes his prize boar, Blue Boy, can win first prize and Ma (Louise Dresser) pins her hopes on her pickles and mincemeat. Teenagers Wayne and Margy are just hoping for... they're not exactly sure, but something exciting.

The nominal star here is Will Rogers and he gives a folksy, homespun performance as Pa - makes you wonder if he's acting or not. Louise Dresser is Ma just as you would imagine Ma would be. She was one of our best actresses and retired too soon. The story, though, focuses on the two young players, Norman Foster (Wayne) and Janet Gaynor (Margy) and their adventurous encounters with complete strangers.

This is a 'Pre-Code' picture and tame by todays (lack of) standards, and so both are seen conversing in bedrooms with above-mentioned strangers (smelling salts, please), but the picture is so well-written that the breach of decorum is hardly noticeable. The story is true to life and shot through with vignettes of family life from an earlier time in America. If you were not alive in the 1930's and did not live in the Midwest, you should see this movie. It is a quintessential family picture with lots of heart, as well as exceptional performances by all parties.

State Fair is actually a pretty good movie that's mostly just a vehicle for Janet Gaynor. But it ends up being more than that with the help of Will Rogers and Lew Ayres.

The story revolves around a farming family who enters a prize pig in the State Fair. The two children of the family go off on their own separate adventures while the two parents stay with the pig.

Gaynor is one of the children and she meets and falls in love with Ayres. Their chemistry together is a very intriguing one. Will Rogers is the father who is mostly the comic relief.

You'll most likely like the film and it deserves to be liked. Its a great gem from the early '30s that isn't seen much anymore.

I was able to finally watch the film when it was on The Fox Movie Channel last year. It might be on again soon. I suggest you find out.

This 1933 film of STATE FAIR is nearly impossible to see except on one Fox cable channel, but is the best of all versions, with genuine and unsentimental writing and acting. Director Henry King propels the leisurely plot with a thrilling moving camera that efficiently depicts the varied sensations of a state fair, from wholesome contest fun to the menace of barkers and carnies.

King has a consistent handle on the theme, that the state fair is a quick microcosm of life, an event that thrusts persons together in a venue that makes possible the "rollercoaster" of infatuation (and sex--this is pre-code pleasure), the tension of competition, and the diversion from hard work in this depression era America. Even "Blue boy" the hog and "self object" of Will Rogers' likeable character discovers the same conflicted feelings of sexual attraction. The cast is excellent, with standouts of Rogers, a most natural performer, in a film that is unpolluted by awkward stereotyped supporting players common to his films. A truly stunning-looking Lew Ayres is a dream of a roller coaster partner, and Victor Jory in his silk shirt perfectly embodies the carnie whom small children fear to encounter outside the midway. But it's the quiet moments that register the most--the pensive characters driving at dusk to the fair, full of private anticipation, still totally one as a family. Modern films rarely dare such introspective glimpses, but this film doesn't bore because it is so true. These rural citizens are proud and flawed, but like the wonderful characters in MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS, they embrace the chance to take in the fun and mystery of life.

Can I be slightly crude here and say that an alternate title for this wonderful pre coder could be 'Rutting Season'? I have always been unable to stomach the saccharine 1945 version and the 1962 version is just awful, but this one seems to me far more 'real'. It certainly is quite frank regarding sexual attraction, and not just between hogs and sows. If you pay attention there's more spice to be found in the subtext than in Ma's prize winning pickles. A fascinating film and one that deserves to be shown more than it is.

Before there was the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, which is maybe the most well known version of this property, there was this early sound film that starred Janet Gaynor and Will Rogers.

This film meanders amiably along and has almost no dramatic conflict, aside from whether or not a family's pickles or pig is going to win big at the state fair. But nevertheless there's a kind of ethereal, melancholy spell created by this movie that appealed to me. The idea of a state fair becomes a metaphor for life itself: it's full of expectations and excitement, the pursuit of things we want, some of which we get and some we don't, and it's all over more quickly than we want it to be, leaving us with only the memory.

I haven't seen any other versions of this, but am positive none of them treat the sexual awakening of the daughter and son characters, and especially the son's, as frankly as this version does, given its pre-Code status.

Gaynor was a big deal at the time, having won the very first Best Actress Oscar. And Will Rogers was a huge star and American icon, largely because of his performance in this. It's kind of hard to see now what people went nuts for at the time, since it's all so low-key and humble. Chalk it up to changing times I guess.

Neither actor was nominated for this film -- no actors were nominated. But "State Fair" did manage to get itself a Best Picture nomination and a second in the Best Writing (Adaptation) category.

Grade: A-