Doctor Bull
Dir. John Ford
77 Minutes
USA
1933
Starring: Will Rogers, Vera Allen, Marian Nixon, Howard Lally, Berton Churchill, Louise Dresser, Andy Devine, Rochelle Hudson
***1/2/*****
Judge Priest
Dir. John Ford
80 Minutes
USA
1934
Starring: Will Rogers, Tom Brown, Anita Louise, Henry B. Walthall, David Landau, Rochelle Hudson, Hattie McDaniel, Stepin Fetchit
**/*****
Steamboat Round the Bend
Dir. John Ford
82 Minutes
USA 1935
Starring: Will Rogers, Anne Shirley, Irvin S. Cobb, Eugene Pallette, John McGuire, Berton Churchill, Stepin Fetchit
***1/2/*****
Between 1933 and 1935, John Ford collaborated with Will Rogers for, outwardly, three folksy and gentle comedies: Doctor Bull in 1933, Judge Priest in 1934, and Steamboat Round the Bend in 1935. On a purely superficial plain, the films sound slightly detached from what Ford was doing at the time, his early sound output including a series of dramas examining facets of solider life in various communities: pilots in Air Mail, a mysterious ship on a mission to destroy a German U-boat in Seas Beneath, Navy divers in Men Without Women, soldiers wandering the desert in The Lost Patrol, or an examination of tragic after effects of war in Pilgrimage. A trio of Will Rogers comedies almost appears slight by contrast, though after settling into the rhythm of Rogers' style and the content of these films Ford's interests are undeniably present throughout.
Of the three, Doctor Bull and Judge Priest have the most overlap in terms of narrative and character, operating on similar wavelengths as to their pacing and intent, though the latter dangerously going off the rails in its admiration and nostalgia for the Confederacy. In the former, Rogers plays the titular Doc Bull who, according to the opening title card, "brings his neighbors into the world and postpones their departure as long as possible". But in actuality, Bull is a bit weary and beginning to be felt like he is being taken for granted by those in his New England town, an easy summation to make as the town hypochondriac Larry Ward (played by Andy Devine) pesters him for every ache and pain he experiences but quickly runs over to the other side of the counter when a gaggle of pretty girls enter the soda shop where he works. Much of the first half moves in an episodic format, with the town gradually being introduced through their personal dramas brought upon by their ailments, both physical and mental. The narrative starts to pick up steam when Bull, already a subject of much gossip for the late nights he spends in the company of Janet (Vera Allen), chooses to attend to the birth of a poor man's child instead of tending to the elderly servant of the wealthy Bannings. When a mysterious outbreak of typhoid begins to spread across the town, they have their catalyst to inspire the town to turn on him.
Doctor Bull drifts towards a sentimental, though not saccharine, conclusion, with a speech for Rogers' almost at home in a Capra film about how he is the only one who really knows everyone in the town, a moment that considers physicians as having to function as both a detached professional and a personal confidant. And it works because Rogers plays the part with a gentle, but burdened, touch in a quite lovely and sweet performance. Fully on display is Ford's deft touch for ensemble, and wandering around this town (proclaimed as "dull" by a side character early on) through the vantage points of medical vignettes gives the community a perfectly lived-in feeling. And a group of parents fearing that a typhoid vaccine would be more harmful to their children than the disease itself is a fascinating example of how, nearly a century later, people are still surrounding themselves with the same issues.
Similar in tone, though practically dreadful in execution is Judge Priest, a film which in his later years Ford would say was his favorite of his pictures. Once again, Rogers' character is in a position where drama comes to him and where a picture of his Kentucky town could be painted through the agency he has in being ingrained in their stories. The film is based on the popular Judge Priest character by Irvin S. Cobb (which Ford would later dip back into with the apparent remake (at this point unseen by me) The Sun Shines Bright twenty years later). While Priest is quite proud of his status as a Confederate veteran, he seems to only really have interest in spending much time with Jeff Poindexter (Stepin Fetchit, a black vaudevillian performer who had worked earlier with Ford on Salute and The World Moves On). It is with Fetchit where the film starts to drift into odd territory, with the rightful criticism of Ford's less than ideal portrait of African Americans almost a bit too emphatic here to dismiss as just a minor failing. Alongside the films strong sentimentality towards the Confederacy, including a highly didactic and overblown speech during its concluding moments, Fetchit, Hattie MacDaniel, and the multiple musical moments of the "grateful and happy Negro", while fitting for the characters at the center of this film and their political values, are oddly uncomfortable as a statement that the film may be making. It does not feel like an act of malice on the part of Ford or Rogers, moreso that Cobb's material does not particularly adapt well and may be a questionable choice of having been utilized in the first time without any type of engagement or conversation by those making the film.
Steamboat Round the Bend, the final collaboration by Ford and Rogers and the final film made by the actor before his untimely death in a plane crash, fares much better and is an often lovely and delicately presented work. Unlike Doctor Bull and Judge Priest which take their time getting to know their respective communities before heightening their stakes, Steamboat reverses the structure and begins with the confession and arrest of Duke (John McGuire) who murdered a man in self-defense, an act that was seen by the traveling evangelical leader New Moses (Berton Churchill). While Duke awaits hanging, his wife Fleety (Anne Shirley) stays with his uncle John (Will Rogers), a steamboat captain. After a rocky start to their relationship, the two grow fond of each other and travel together in the hopes of finding New Moses, clearing Duke's name, and, for no other real reason than to raise the drama a hair more, win a steamboat race with John's rival.
While the earlier two films had Rogers' character function as the foundation of the narrative with characters coming (or at least calling out) to him, this film explores a landscape of America through the travels in the steamboat: in gender and class with the dynamic between him and Fleety, whom he looks upon with disdain as "swamp trash" during their first meeting, and eventually in race with Stepin Fetchit and a subplot involving a group of wax statues from a European museum that are reconfigured to becoming figures out of American myths (saluted by those in the town the boat is stopping in, later destroyed and used for fire when they need additional fuel to win the race). Sweet scenes rarely move into the territory of the overblown, though the film does end a bit too pat with an extremely abrupt conclusion over the last thirty seconds or so.
The film has several nice elements to latch onto, from the simple beauty of Rogers and Shirley's chemistry and developments to the wonderfully set-up centerpiece wax museum sequence. But it is deceptively simplistic, a complex piece that is considering a variety of American cultural myths disguising itself through this calm, folky, and rustic outer layer.
When taken together, the Ford/Rogers sequence, while imperfect, is a curious moment in Ford's oeuvre, and feels like a necessary path on his way towards grander works that are just a hair away. Even their classification as simple comedies is almost acting them a disservice, because, while often funny, there is almost a built-in dismissal by such a categorization and the two seem to not only be attempting to make strong works on their own but also wish to explore the elements and iconography of Rogers that brought him so much popularity. In this way, Judge Priest is almost a wasted effort as it feels more inclined towards the surface level than the other two. And one wonders what Ford would have done with the mythology of Rogers had he survived and what a late career collaboration that engages with these three films could have looked like.
Films viewed on August 6, 2020
Part of an ongoing John Ford Project with notes from selected films.