STATE FAIR (1933)

First-rate Americana from director Henry King (Americana his specialty), the best adaptation of Philip Stong’s novel*, showing real connection & deep feeling for terrain & the human comedy/zero condescension to rural folk. Hard to find good DVD or streaming options, but even compromised visuals can’t fail to capture the warmth of Janet Gaynor, Will Rogers, Louise Dresser & Norman Foster’s farming family, off to the annual State ‘do,’ where the young adults will court romance (fleeting or permanent) while the parents enter pickles, ‘spiked’ mincemeat & a world class hog for prizes. (For modern audiences, it's the best introduction to Rogers, who can be a pokey, if richer character in his John Ford films.) And everyone glowing from within under Hal Mohr’s honeyed lensing. Mohr, Mary Pickford’s cinematographer after her split with Charles Rosher, does wonders for Gaynor, making her chance-meeting & romance with that nice young Lew Ayres an enchantment. So’s the whole film.

DOUBLE-BILL: *Stong’s other film adaptation in ‘33, another rural romance from another filmmaking ‘King,’ director King Vidor, his masterful, criminally unheralded THE STRANGER’S RETURN/’33.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Remake #1: Rodgers & Hammerstein's 1943 film musical with pleasing songs and one real classic (‘It Might as Well Be Spring’) gives off an antiseptic Iowa-via-B’way vibe, shiny & TechniColor bright; while a Texas-set 1962 remake of that version misses on every level.