Judge Priest
Screening on Film
Directed by John Ford.
With Will Rogers, Stepin Fetchit, Henry Walthall.
US, 1934, 35mm, black & white, 80 min.
With Will Rogers, Stepin Fetchit, Henry Walthall.
US, 1934, 35mm, black & white, 80 min.
The best chance to watch Will Rogers, the likable, homespun Oklahoman who became a national institution. He’s genial and relaxed and pleasantly amateur here as a small-town judge, and Ford is equally relaxed in this anecdotal pastoral. The most uncomfortable element for modern audiences is to deal with the shuffling, slow-as-molasses comedy of Stepin Fetchit as Rogers’ servant. Most are offended by his Uncle Tomism. A minority (including certain African-American scholars) see Fetchit as a comic genius who found ways to play against the rhythm of the white characters and steal the scenes. And what of Rogers and Fetchit together? Is their relationship master-slave? Or almost, strangely, egalitarian?
