County Fair

John Arledge is a great jockey at the county fairs. He wins .... and crooked Harry Worth gets him disqualified for hypoing his mount; in reality, Worth had his henchmen stick a needle in the animal. Arledge is fined all his savings, and disqualified from being a jockey, so he and trainer Fuzzy Knight go on a road trip. They spot Jimmy Butler riding his horse, and realize what a great racing animal he is. Mary Lawrence, Butler's sister is pretty cute too. They plan to run him in the county fair, but their father, J. Farrell MacDonald is a sourpuss who thinks that everyone on a farm is there to work, including the racehorse his late wife bought for their son.

There's little in this second feature from Grand National that will surprise anyone who has ever seen a racing movie before, the youthful cast is lively and enthusiastic, and Knight, for a change, is pretty good in what is a supporting role. The only question is how hard MacDonald can scowl, and he does so pretty hard.

This film tries to present an uplifting story of sympathetic characters overcoming adversity, but unfortunately it just doesn't work at all. It is brought down most of all by the plot, which is just a mess: it is riddled with gaping holes, it is heavily dependent on unlikely coincidences, and it calls for the characters repeatedly to make irrational and improbable decisions. The rest of the production is far too undistinguished to make up for it.

The hero is John, a jockey who was framed for drugging his horse at a county fair. He leaves in disgrace with a friend, and in the course of their travels they meet a brother and sister who have an amazingly fast horse, which their grumpy father insists be used only for farm work. The setup has a lot of flaws in it, and from there on in, things develop in even more far-fetched fashion. The weak writing, acting, and directing aren't nearly good enough here to make the plot work.

"County Fair" seems to be a well-meaning effort, but it ends up being just a bad film that really has nothing to recommend to it.