Will Rogers gets shoehorned into George Kelly ’s classic stage comedy THE TORCH BEARERS (the one about small town amateur theatricals) without too much trouble in this low-key pic released just weeks before his fatal air crash. The trick to the best Rogers films lay in juxtaposing his calm demeanor, vocal trickery, gentle irony and slow & steady win-the-race pace against unexpectedly serious issues which he naturally, just by hanging around and being sensible, cut down to size. Here, not enough is at stake to set off those magical comic polarities. But there’s still a fair amount of fun to be had, especially in the big rehearsal sequence and in a truly looney screen test where the great man shows off his vocal stylings as a would-be crooner.
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