Bill Hamm, the interpretative director at the Will Rogers Historic State Park, invites residents to a screening of the 1934 Will Rogers movie Judge Priest at the Bay Theater at 1035 Swarthmore.
The movie, directed by John Ford, will screen at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, October 17. It is only $10 a ticket, but you receive free popcorn and a soft drink. High school and college students are free with identification.
Will Rogers was the number one box office star in 1934 -yet few have seen one of his movies. The good news is Will’s films gave some of the first opportunities for Black actors, including Hattie McDaniel, Lincoln Perry and Bill Robinson, who appear in costarring roles in his films.
The film was a success at the box office. It was one of Fox’s biggest hits of the year (five of the studio’s seven big hits starred Rogers).
In 1998, Jonathan Rosenbaum of the Chicago Reader, included the film in his unranked list of the best American films not included on the AFI Top 100.
As the hero of Irvin S. Cobb’s classic stories, the title character William “Billy” Priest is a widowed judge (and proud Confederate veteran), played by Rogers, who uses common sense, a laid-back air and considerable humanity to dispense justice in a small town in 1890 Kentucky—and now faces his toughest case yet
In reviews, the film was dubbed “extreme racism,” by one critic, but yet another wrote “Terrific cast, Will Rogers does an excellent job in a typical laid back role for him. Very well written, short and to the point with a good moral. Interesting direction by John Ford.”
Another wrote it’s best “to view this as a historical artifact. . . .Stepin Fetchit and Hattie McDaniel are in the film, and although Will Rogers treats them like he does any other character in the film (perhaps overtly so), they do embody alarming and exaggerated racist stereotypes. However, the overall feel of the film remains good-natured.”
Hamm wrote, “black performers parts were often stereotypical and relegated to playing servants. Before the screening there will be a panel of film experts, Randy Haberkamp, Brianna Brown, Dylan Brody, with Moderator Larry Nemeck, to discuss early 1930’s sound films and provide some context for the era.
Residents are invited to come and see why Will Rogers was one of the nation’s most popular movie stars of the twentieth century.
To register: click here.