In YANKEE DOODLE DANDY/’42, James Cagney, as George M. Cohan, tries to explain a Variety headline to some neighborhood kids: HIX NIX STIX PIX.* Or: Rural Audiences Rejecting Rural-Themed Movies. And here’s a film the headline might have referred to. Spun off a popular radio show, it featured Yankee farmer/philosopher Seth Parker & his local pals, played by Phillips Lord & his over-the-air regulars in broad comical turns. There’s a fair amount of hayseed humor to wade thru, and you’ll need tolerance for community sing-a-longs (A Prairie Home Companion has nothing on this), but the two main dramas embedded in the town’s social life work up more interest than you expect, with Hollywood character actors lending considerable appeal. (They sure are better actors than those radio hams!) Bette Davis, in her fourth film, and the first she felt gave her a chance to show something, is the pretty young thing who defies a threatening father to elope with young Frank Albertson, illegitimate son of the town pariah. Frankie Darro plays a foster kid whose violent, long lost dad shows up out of the blue to kidnap him. Corny and corn-fed sentiment, if not without some real Maine atmosphere to it. The film sunk without a trace, as did the Hollywood careers of the radio players. While Albertson, villainous dad Stanley Fields, Darro & Davis did . . . well, quite a bit better.
DOUBLE-BILL: At times, a touch of D. W. Griffith comes across in William Seiter’s direction & especially in J. Roy Hunt’s lensing, with themes and characters reminiscent of TRUE HEART SUSIE/’19 and WAY DOWN EAST/’20, Griffith at his best.
CONTEST: *‘HIX NIX STIX PIX’ is considered Variety’s second most famous front page headline; what’s #1? Guess right to win a MAKSQUIBS Write-Up of your choosing. HINT: it ran in 1929.
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