Wednesday | October 4, 2006 9:00 pm

State Fair

Screening on Film

Directed by Henry King.
With Janet Gaynor, Will Rogers, Lew Ayres.
US, 1933, 35mm, black & white, 94 min.

Gaynor and Will Rogers headlined this family comedy celebrating the rural rituals of the annual State Fair. Based on a bestseller by Phil Stong, the picture gets big laughs out of farmer Rogers’ struggles to prepare his prize hog, Blue Boy, for the big competition. Variety preferred the charming love story over the broad humor, claiming the “chief interest is the debut of a new romance team in Janet Gaynor and Lew Ayres.” To heighten verisimilitude, director Henry King seamlessly incorporated documentary footage of an actual country fair into the staged drama. An enduring touchstone of nostalgic Americana, State Fair has been remade twice (in 1945 and again in 1962) as a musical with songs written by Rodgers and Hammerstein.