John Ford mavens tend to write off the director’s special affection for this forgotten (even despised) B-pic as unwarranted devotion to a failed pet-project. Or, since it’s John Ford, contrarian behavior. Returning to Irvin Cobb’s stories of a Pre-WWI Jim Crow-era Kentucky (see Will Rogers/JUDGE PRIEST/’34), the casually accepted racism in custom & attitude of the original had turned Politically Incorrect long before this came out in ‘53, let alone now. Yet Ford subverts as much as he signs on to; and right from the start as that misunderstood comedian Stepin Fetchit (all but unemployable two decades after his Hollywood heyday playing shufflin’ ‘Darkies’) drops his fishing line to dash a four-minute mile, worried he’ll be late for Judge Priest’s wake-up call. Stepin Fetchit, in a hurry? A first, though still speaking in that high, strangulated voice. Similar topsy-turvy behavior informs about every other set piece in a film largely concerned with the re-election campaign of Charles Winniger’s Judge Priest, upsetting decorum of accepted behavior, yet staying true to his idea of Southern graces. Whether welcoming home the town’s alcoholic Black Sheep scion; granting a ‘Fallen Woman’ a respectable funeral (and borrowing the local Black Church for the purpose - note how the church stays segregated for an All-White service as Black parishioners look in from outside); supporting the woman’s shamed daughter; standing up to a lynch mob coming for a young black on a rape charge (we’re only two years from Emmett Till). Uncomfortable to watch even 65 years on, especially the first two or three reels. (Are we catching on to bait-and-switch tactics or adjusting to Cobb & Ford’s overly-sunny representations?) The film is too fascinating to miss on many levels, as well as loaded with tremendous set pieces: a duel with carriage whips; the lynch mob scene Ford wasn’t allowed to keep back in ‘34; or his long planned, and much admired, prostitute funeral procession.
SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Oddly, the film, all but dumped Stateside by Republic Pictures, was critically well received in England, even nominated for a BAFTA Best Pic.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: When we finally get around to singing MY OLD KENTUCKY HOME the lyric is changed with ‘Darkies’ replaced by ‘Children.’ Progress or infantilization?
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