Tomorrow marks the 130th anniversary of the birth of Will Rogers. With that in mind, it seemed appropriate to review the status of his films on DVD. One obstacle to releasing his films to the home video market is that they are not widely known. Will Rogers died in 1935, and I do not recall them being shown much on television. Indeed, I myself did not decide to watch his films from any interest in Will Rogers. I saw my first Will Rogers film (Judge Priest) as a result of becoming interested in that film’s director, John Ford, in the 1980s. Although I was able to tape another John Ford directed film (Doctor Bull) off of AMC in the 1990s, prior to the last few years, those were the only Will Rogers films I had ever seen. Fox released the Will Rogers Collection Volume One in early 2006. The big attraction of this set is that it contained a restored print of Steamboat Round the Bend, the last of the three Will Rogers films directed by John Ford, and one that ends with a steamboat race. I bought the set just for that film, but I was also pleased with the sets other films, also restored, Doubting Thomas, Life Begins at Forty, and In Old Kentucky. In Old Kentucky ends with a big harness race that Will Rogers must win to save a family’s farm. Although innumerable films have this plot device (A Day at the Races, etc.) the ending of In Old Kentucky is the most inspired and wacky of them all. I am not a technical expert when it comes to picture quality, but all three films look terrific. Robert Harris’s review of the collection is here http://www.hometheaterforum.com/forum/thread/239998/a-few-word-about-steamboat-round-the-bend. Strangely, Volume One mysteriously disappeared from Amazon.com. However, it still can be found at other internet retailers.
After the Will Rogers Collection Volume One came out, I expected that Fox would continue the pattern established with Volume One of having one or two of Rogers’s better known films in Volume Two along with some lesser known films. Possible highlight films Fox could have included were Judge Priest or Doctor Bull, the Best Picture Academy Award nominee State Fair, or the Mark Twain novel based A Connecticut Yankee. Bizarrely, none of these films were included in Volume Two. Instead, Volume Two consisted of Mr. Skitch, Ambassador Bill, Too Busy to Work, and David Harem. Mr. Skitch and Ambassador Bill were both released by Fox on VHS, but they wound up being the lesser films in Volume Two. In Too Busy to Work, Rogers turns in one of his best acting performances and reprises the role of a hobo that he had played in several silent films. David Harem is a fine comedy and features Evelyn Venable as the ingénue. Venable is full of energy and thoroughly delightful. At one point, when the young man she likes is attacked by local thugs, she pick up a heavy stone on which a street address has been engraved and knocks one of the thugs out cold. As a bonus feature, Volume Two contains the silent short, The Ropin’ Fool, in which Rogers demonstrates his incredible ability with a lasso. No doubt due to the terrible marketing decision Fox made about the film composition of Volume Two, there has been no Volume Three.
Fox’s Ford at Fox (and the more affordable John Ford’s American Comedies) box set saw the release of Judge Priest and Doctor Bull. While both were welcome, neither was restored. Finally Fox’s Murnau Borzage box set contained Borzage’s They Had to See Paris. They Had to See Paris was Will Rogers’s first talking film, and it was regarded by many critics as one of the best films of 1929. Unfortunately, They Had to See Paris has not been released in an affordable edition, and I have yet to see it.
Watching a Will Rogers film is a remarkable experience. It is like stepping into a time machine and entering a simpler, slower paced world which, though it has its problems, is one where most of the daily stresses of life can be relieved with some old fashioned common sense. In addition to presence of Rogers, a principal reason for the overall effect of these films is that, unlike most films from the period we see today, they were rarely set in large urban areas. Most occur in rural settings or small towns, and several are set in the 1890s. They also focus on simple people leading rather ordinary lives. In Life Begins at Forty there is even a demonstration of some of the latest kitchen technology of the period. The appeal of a Will Rogers film is much like that of The Andy Griffith Show, only I think that the viewer’s experience of the world created by these films is more complete than that created by TAGS. I have found all of the films to improve on multiple viewings, and I recommend them all. Hopefully, Fox might one day take another chance on Will Rogers and release some of his unreleased gems, State Fair, A Connecticut Yankee and The County Chairman (with Evelyn Venable). Until then, Fox might try to rectify the biggest commercial disadvantage these films have: most classic film fans have never seen them and there are few around who saw them in the 1930s. I would suggest offering them to TCM for free for a time. I know that “free” is one four letter word of which Hollywood is not fond, but it could hardly impair Fox’s revenue generation and it might enhance the value of its property. Once again, Happy Birthday Will Rogers!
