JUDGE PRIEST (1934)
Starring: Will Rogers, Tom Brown, Anita Louise, Henry B. Walthall, David Landau, Rochelle Hudson, Roger Imhof, Frank Melton, Charley Grapewin, Berton Churchill, Brenda Fowler, Francis Ford, Hattie McDaniel, Stepin Fetchit
Writers: Dudley Nicholas & Lamar Trotti (based on character of "Judge Priest" by Irvin S. Cobb)
Cinematography: George Schneiderman
Music: Cyril J. Mockridge
Editor: Paul Weatherwax
B&W, 1h 20m. 1.37: 1 presentation.
Released on: Sept. 15, 1934 by Fox Film Corporation.
My experience: Ford at Fox DVD box set
Judge Priest begins with the title character behind the judge's desk, in the midst of reading a newspaper. He looks up, startled, clears his throat, and exclaims, "Ahem ... this court is called to order". And then the opening credits start.
This irreverent opening alerts the viewer to what the tone of the film will be, a combination of sentimental honesty and detached irony. It's a difficult line to tread, and while it's not always successful, Judge Priest succeeds more than it misses.
Will Rogers, in the second of his three collaborations with John Ford, plays the title character, a down-homey old judge up for re-election in a small Kentucky town. His opponent, former state senator Horace Maydew (Berton Churchill), is a pompous bombast who contracts directly with Judge Priest's homespun restraint. Judge Priest's tolerance of his rival is further strained by the fact that his sister, Mrs. Caroline Priest (Brenda Fowler) insists that his nephew Rome (Tom Brown) take his place in "proper" society by dating Senator Maydew's daughter Virginia (Rochelle Hudson). This despite the fact that the boy is heads over tails in love with next door neighbour Ellie May Gillespie (Anita Louise), who is ostensibly from the wrong side of the tracks, even though she lives next door to Judge Priest and never appears with a hair out of place.
Local barber Flem Talley (Frank Melton) is also a suitor for Ellie May, who definitely seems to prefer Rome. But while Aunt Caroline wholly disapproves of her nephew taking up with "that girl", his pursuit of his longtime neighbour and crush is encouraged by Judge Priest and his maid, Aunt Disley (Hattie McDaniel), who never miss an opportunity to get the two together. In one scene, the judge imitates the speaking mannerisms of his friend Jeff Poindexter (Stepin Fetchit), in order to get Flem Talley to cut short a date with Ellie May.
Some great character actors, many part of the John Ford Stock Company, make up much of the remainder of the townspeople. They include Henry B. Walthall as Reverend Ashby Brand, David Landau as soft-spoken handyman Bob Gillis, Roger Imhof as Billy Gaynor, the town's voluble windbag and drunkard, and Ford's own brother Francis Ford as Juror No. 12, whose main goal in life seems to be to spit chaws of tobacco as far as he can.
Let's get the criticisms out of the way. Judge Priest is not for everybody, not in this day and age. The inclusion of Stepin Fetchit's act and Hattie McDaniel singing gospel songs and bugging her eyes out does not age well at all. The world we live in is plenty unaccepting of people in today's time; one can only imagine the amount of casual, unremarked-upon racism that occurred 90 years ago. Actually, you can get a taste of it here. Stepin Fetchit's lazy, sleepy way of talking and walking is pretty much the caricature of the "shiftless black person" passed down throughout history, and all the maids showing nothing but delight in their jobs make them one-note characters.
And yet ... and yet. Ford takes these tropes and subverts them. Yes, McDaniel has to sing a couple of gospel songs with some atrocious lyrics, but she is also the key catalyst in uniting Rome and Ellie May. As well, there is also a touching scene where she and Rogers duet on a song that at first seems improvised but you realize it's a ritual in their household. The judge, unlike most people in the town, treats Aunt Dilsey with kindness and respect, and there's a genuine connection between the two, which is fairly uncommon in films of the 1930s.
Stepin Fetchit's character is a bit more troublesome. It's incredibly difficult to watch, and unacceptable as entertainment today, but he plays the fool very well, and I mean that in a Shakespearean way. What comes out of his mouth is incredibly inane, and the way he performs it is grotesque, and yet Jeff Poindexter, if he lived in 1600s England, would have been considered a philosopher fool. As for Lincoln Perry, the actor behind the character of Stepin Fetchit, he has been reviled by the black community in the last half century due to his acting being very "minstrel show." But as a black actor in a time when they were on screen for as little as possible, his drawing things out and making himself the centre of attention (and make no mistake, regardless of what you think it's impossible to take your eyes of him when he's onscreen) are brilliant in their subversiveness. The fact that he mostly -- not completely -- vocally drops this facade during his one scene with Hattie McDaniel -- is a nod to the performative aspect of the Stepin Fetchit character.
I don't feel qualified to delve into the issue of race relations much more than that, but suffice it to say that John Ford has always had a love hate relationship with small town societies. The groupings together of peoples, the rituals of churchgoing and socials, you can tell he appreciates, but at the same time he finds them annoying as hell and is more than willing to take the piss out of them. The fact that there's a social hierarchy in a small Kentucky town is a sticking point, and many of the people who are considered part of the "virtuous class" -- the churchgoers, the officeholders, the town leaders -- are shown to be anything but.
So after this little detour into social deconstruction, what do I actually think of the film itself? Firstly, Will Rogers is great in it. I love his sarcastic yet sensitive persona; it's very much John Ford projected onto the screen, if not slightly softened for public consumption! if he hadn't tragically died in a plane accident in 1935, I'm sure he and Ford would have continued to collaborate on many more films. As alternative history, it's interesting to imagine how Ford's career, and cinema in general, may have progressed had Rogers not died. Would John Wayne have become such a big star if Ford had focused on Will Rogers social satires and not John Wayne westerns? Food for thought.
So. Rogers was great, the characters actors portraying the townspeople -- especially Walthall, Landau and Churchill -- are fantastic, and the film moves quickly. On the downside, there's all the casual racism, the plot is feather-light, and for the master, it's very visually flat. So truthfully, your mileage may vary with this one.
Six jovial jurors out of ten.
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