La belle écuyère

1940's "Chad Hanna" was a colorful feast for the eyes, but far stronger on atmosphere than incident. We open in New York state, 1841, and the circus is coming to town. B. D. Bisbee (John Carradine) works as the advance agent for the Huguenine Circus, garnering attention wherever he goes, building up the audience to a fever pitch by emphasizing both male AND female acrobats...in tights! In the title role, Henry Fonda performs another expert character study, playing a Canastota stable boy who literally runs away to join the circus to escape a vengeful slave catcher whose daughter Caroline (Linda Darnell) later joins him, also a victim of her father's rage. Chad instantly falls for equestrienne Albany Yates (Dorothy Lamour), the star attraction for this one ring circus, but she soon spurns Huguenine for a rival circus that has an elephant. It's a shame that the filmmakers chose to showcase the dramatically anemic, predictably absurd romantic triangle over the more interesting circus life rarely depicted at that time. Fonda and Carradine are teamed for the fifth and last time, from "Jesse James," "Drums Along the Mohawk," "The Grapes of Wrath," and "The Return of Frank James." Carradine was no stranger to lovely Linda Darnell- "Brigham Young," "Blood and Sand," "Fallen Angel," and the 1958 WAGON TRAIN, "The Dora Gray Story." After such a powerful introduction, Carradine instantly fades into the background, disappearing completely after Chad and Caroline marry 54 minutes in. Sharp eyed viewers can catch canvasman Rondo Hatton at the 34 minute mark, looking quite menacing on the far right, one line of dialogue spoken in his own voice: "all right men, up to the next street!"

The great director Henry King comes up with a most charming and unpretentious film about a circus full of generally likable characters soon to be joined by a young Henry Fonda who is completely fascinated by lovely temptress Dorothy Lamour... only to see her depart and join another circus.

That is not all, either: Lamour is in love with another guy, and so it comes to pass that the pendant Fonda wanted to give her lands up with another beautiful female, Linda Darnell. Therein lies an interesting twist in that you feel that Fonda's first love is Lamour, and only living the hardships of live - especially circus life - and Lamour's experience tell him that Darnell owns his heart.

Superb scenes with a lion and an elephant, the circus' entry into town, Darnell learning horseriding with suspender cables, all part of lovely cinematography by Ernest Palmer. Top notch acting across the board, with Jane Darwell and Guy Kibbee a particular standout as the Huguenine couple.

Thoughtful script.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I have!

Attracted by the wonderful cast and early technicolor (apparently restored), I tuned into this vintage movie with great expectations. I was disappointed by the dull screenplay, slow and poorly connected scenes and general direction. But if you want to see the beautiful Dorothy Lamour and Linda Darnell, stappingly handsome Henry Fonda, all doing as much as they can with deficient direction and scripts, this is a film for you. The technicolor and visual clarity are excellent. But the story, despite its great potential, is told ploddingly and will probably let you down.

Refer to previous reviews for summaries of the plot itself.

Henry Fonda is adequate but really nothing more in this story of a 19th century love triangle. He is a young and naive erstwhile stable-lad who joins the travelling circus community and pretty immediately falls for "Albany" (Dorothy Lamour). She is feisty and determined - she is the fearless horseback rider after all. Things become more complicated for him, though, when he takes a shine to an elephant and hops big tops. That's when he encounters "Caroline" (Linda Darnell) - a familiar face from his youth and from here on in this film slips, effortlessly, into the realms of romantic melodrama - and becomes really all rather predictable. There are a few characterful contributions from John Carradine's rabble-rousing ("Bisbee") and Jane Darwell as his long suffering wife, but after a lively start that demonstrates some of the considerable skills on display for a very appreciative public, this all just drifts into mediocrity and though kills ninety minutes without difficulty, is all pretty wordy and unremarkable. The photography captures something of the excitement of the arena when it is given a chance by Henry King, Otherwise - Hmmm!

Henry Fonda did his third and last big screen adaption of a Walter Edmonds story about upstate New York with Chad Hanna. The other two were his debut film The Farmer Takes A Wife and the John Ford classic Drums Along The Mohawk. Though Chad Hanna is the least of the three it's still an entertaining film and Fonda could play these rustic characters well, investing in them a sense of dignity and strength.

He's got the title role in Chad Hanna who's a farm boy who gets a yen to join the traveling circus after seeing a poster of Dorothy Lamour as a bareback rider. That's Hank's hormones talking there, but later on another runaway in the person of Linda Darnell and it's the two of them that are fated for each other

The circus business back in the day was one dangerous profession and I'm not just talking about under the big top. Guy Kibbee and Jane Darwell's show is plagued by the much bigger outfit that Ted North runs and he wants them out of business. North even steals Lamour away from Kibbee's show, but that only serves to give Darnell a break and making her the top bareback rider.

Just the names I've mentioned so far indicate that Chad Hanna has a cast of some colorful players and you can add John Carradine to that list as well as Kibbee's advance man. One thing I don't understand is why Kibbee thought Fonda would make a good ringmaster when Kibbee was injured in a fracas with North's show. He promoted the shy Fonda over Carradine who has one of the great voices in the English language. Go figure that one.

Despite that faux pas, Chad Hanna remains a fine film done in nice technicolor and does capture the flavor of rural western New York back in the next to last century.