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The Forgotten Film Career of Will Rogers
We’ve paid plenty of attention to Will Rogers (1879-1935) on Travalanche in tribute to his mighty cultural reach and today, even though we could well be writing about 2 or 3 people we’ve never posted on, we’re going to do some more on Rogers. First, though, a round-up (ha! I said “round-up”) of his existing footprint here, for background.
Today’s topic is a neglected one, not just by me, but by everyone. Will Rogers was not just a great star of the stage and radio and a newspaper humorist, but he was also in close to 70 movies between 1918 and his death in 1935. In spite of this, somehow he is not well remembered as a movie star. I think ultimately because he is regarded more as a “personality” than an actor. There are but few people we can compare him to in this regard. Robert Benchley, perhaps. Maybe Elvis Presley? It’s that feeling of, despite the fact that the artist is doing a pretty good job of acting in a story that’s been built around him, it’s impossible for anyone to pretend that he’s not the real guy, not the audience, not the other people onscreen, and not even the star himself. It has the feeling of a cameo, even when the actor is present in all of the scenes throughout the entire film. I reiterate, Rogers was a fine actor. But it’s just kind of like having the real Mark Twain in a movie. Or seeing your dad in a talent show. Films are a game of “let’s pretend”, but sometimes what’s on screen is just too real. That said, plenty of Rogers films are duly amazing and should be better remembered as classics.
In 1918 Roger began a three-year contract with Goldwyn Pictures , the same outfit that produced Mabel Normand’s features. Laughing Bill Hyde (1918) based on a Rex Beach novel. He made 14 films for Goldwyn (several of them costarring Irene Rich) through A Poor Relation (1921).
Immediately after this he replaced the recently disgraced Fatty Arbuckle in Paramount’s comedy-fantasy One Glorious Day (1922) with Lila Lee and Alan Hale Jr. Directed by James Cruze, the film concerns a scientist who experiments with out-of-body experiences, who is more than inconvenienced when a malevolent spirit named “Ek” takes over his body and goes on a partying spree, as Rogers’ disembodied spirit helplessly looks on. This is a very strong premise both for horror and comedy — someone ought to remake it. Forrest Ackerman, the guy who put out Famous Monsters of Filmland credited this movie with getting him interested in horror.
Also in 1922, Rogers played Ichabod Crane in The Headless Horseman, an independent adaptation of Washington Irving’sThe Legend of Sleepy Hollow, one of the first screen versions of that classic tale.
From 1922 through 1924, Rogers starred in a series of comedy shorts for Hal Roach. The first of these, The Roping Fool (1922) is one of the better remembered of these, both because it consists primarily of an exhibition of Rogers’ lariat tricks from his vaudeville and revue act, and because it’s been widely distributed on DVD and on Youtube. In some of these he revived a hobo character named “Jubilo” from one of his Goldwyn features. In others, he plays a guy named Alfalfa Doolittle. As in some of Stan Laurel’s solo films, some of his comedies send-up popular movies of the day. Two Wagons, Both Covered (1924) tweaks Cruze’s The Covered Wagon (1923). The Cowboy Sheik (1924) spoofs Valentino. In Jubilo Jr (1924) he teams up with the kids from Our Gang!
Then came two more silent features in 1927. He co-starred in with Dorothy Gish in a British screen adaptation of the stage musical Tip-Toes. This was followed by A Texas Steer, an adaptation of a Charles Hoyt play, with Louise Fazenda, Sam Hardy, Douglas Fairbanks Jr, Lilyan Tashman, Bud Jamison, Mack Swain, and Lucien Littlefield. In 1927 and 1928 he starred in a series of silent travelogues, depicting him rambling through Europe, filed as dispatches.
Then came the talkies. 20 of them over a 6 year period; we can be grateful for his productivity. That’s quite a legacy for such a short space of years. Naturally, Rogers was all about talk, and his format suited his talents vastly better than the silents had (though by writing his own intertitles, he had been able to inject his own personality into the silents as well, much as W.C. Fields had done during the same years). Also notable: by the time of his talkies, Rogers was well into middle age so his screen character was adjusted accordingly. Instead of cowboys, his characters tend to be small town and rural authority figures, and sometimes against type, millionaires, which was a common convention of the time. Almost all of his talkies were made for Fox; three of them were directed by John Ford.
They Had to See Paris (1929)
As we mentioned above Will Rogers and Irene Rich were a kind of loose screen team throughout many films of both the silent and talking eras, with Rich usually cast as his wife. It was also a common convention of the time to cast earthy rural types as self-made millionaires in comedies. Buster Keaton often played such characters at this time. Or think of Eugene Pallette in My Man Godfrey or The Lady Eve. Often they would follow the Jiggs and Maggie formula, with the wife being a bit of a grasping social climber, the husband a reluctant pacifier of her whims. Here Rich drags him to Paris, and he hates it. Marguerite Churchill and Owen Davis play their adult kids. Fifi D’Orsay is inevitably cast as a local!
So This is London (1930)
The same formula as the previous film, only its now London, and instead of the Peters, Rogers and Rich are now the Drapers, and their son is played by Frank Albertson.
Lightnin’ (1930)
This was originally a 1918 stage vehicle, written by and starring Frank Bacon, and played in a revival by Rogers’ best friend Fred Stone. It had been filmed by John Ford as a silent in 1925 starring stage and screen veteran Jay Hunt. The title character of Lightnin’ Bill Jones (an ironic name because he is slow moving) was a perfect role for Rogers. He plays a hotel owner who helps a feuding young couple patch up their marriage. Louise Dresser plays his wife in this one, with Helen Cohan (George M’s real life kid) as their daughter. Also in the cast a young Joel McCrea, Joyce Compton, and Jason Robards, Sr.
A Connecticut Yankee (1931)
The second screen adaptation of Mark Twain’sA Connecticut Yankee on King Arthur’s Court. The previous (silent) one, a decade earlier had starred Harry Myers (best known from Chaplin’s City Lights). Rogers might have been a better fit in a silent version as well given as how the drawling Oklahoma cowboy did not sound very like a Connecticut Yankee. Plenty rural, but not New England. The story is updated to the present day. Rogers’ character is a radio repairment who gets bonked on the head and travels back to King Arthur’s time. William Farnum is Arthur. Myrna Loy plays the evil Morgan Le Fay very much in the same vein as her “Oriental” villainess in Thirteen Women the following year. There’s also Frank Albertson and Maureen O’Sullivan, with Brandon Hurst as Merlin the Magician (reimagined rather daringly by Twain as a self-serving villain).
Young as You Feel (1931)
Based on a George Ade play. Rogers, back in millionaire mode, plays the exasperated dad of two unruly, unserious sons. He eventually falls for the French chorus girl (Fifi D’Orsay) one of them has brought to the house.
Ambassador Bill (1931)
Guy Bolton penned this comedy about an American ambassador (Rogers) sent to serve in a small, mythical European country where he befriends the young King, a boy (Tad Alexander). The cast includes Marguerite Churchill, Greta Nissen, and a very young Ray Milland. It’s a Lubitsch style tale, directed by Sam Taylor.
Business and Pleasure (1932)
This was the last film of Jetta Goudal, who had been a star for about a decade before running afoul of studio execs for her “difficult temperament”. Here she plays a femme fatale out to frame Rogers on a shipboard cruise. Boris Karloff plays a Sheik! Cast also has Jed Prouty,Oscar Apfel,Vernon Dent,Cyril Ring, and young Joel McCrea.
Down to Earth (1932)
Rogers is reunited with Irene Rich for this sequel to They Had to See Paris. In this one, the family “sees America” — in the midst of the Great Depression. It has some things in common with Schitt’s Creek.
Too Busy to Work (1932)
Rogers is reunited with his Jubilo character from the silent days one last time. Here he is riding the rails because his wife was away with his daughter when he was off fighting in World War One. He finally finds the daughter (Marian Nixon) now living with a wealthy judge (Frederick Burton) and his family since the mother has passed away. Dick Powell plays the girl’s love interest.
I’ve already written about this one! Read about it here.
Doctor Bull (1933)
Rogers plays a small town doctor who must deal with a typhoid epidemic. If it had been made in 2020, all the good townspeople probably would have torn him limb from limb for asking them to wear facemasks. Cast includes Vera Allen, Marian Nixon, Louise Dresser,Andy Devine, and Ralph Morgan. One of the biggest movies of the year.
Mr. Skitch (1933)
Similar to some of W.C. Fields vehicles of the time its basically a road movie wherein Rogers and his family (Zasu Pitts, Rochelle Hudson, Wally Albright) drive cross country from Missouri to see Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon.
David Harum (1934)
Rogers plays a small town banker in this one; his antagonist, the local deacon is played by Charles Middleton, who is in several of Rogers’ films. Louise Dresser plays his wife once again. The plot concerns one of his bank tellers (Kent Taylor) who wins enough from betting on harness racing to take over half the bank. Also in the cast: Evelyn Venable, Stepin Fetchit, Noah Beery, and Roger Imhof.
Handy Andy (1934)
Based on a play called Merry Andrew, that is apparently not the same as the Danny Kaye musical. Rogers plays a small town druggist browbeaten by his wife (Peggy Wood) to sell out to a corporate chain. An evergreen theme! Mary Carlisle is their daughter and there’s also Robert Taylor, Roger Imhof, et al.
Already wrote about this one too! That post is here.
The County Chairman (1935)
A 1903 George Ade play that had originally starred Maclyn Arbuckle, who also starred in a 1914 silent film. It’s a Great McGinty style plot about a local political chief who’s gotten to decide whether to do the right thing even if it means losing an election. It has Rogers regular cast members Evelyn Venable, Kent Taylor, and Louise Dresser, along with a young Mickey Rooney.
Life Begins at 40 (1935)
Directed by George Marshall, this is semi-classic in the Capra mode, with Rogers as a small town printer and newspaper publisher who hires a young man (Richard Cromwell) who had been wrongfully incarcerated for embezzling money from a bank. The banker has it in for both of them, leading to a dramatic climax in which it emerges that the banker’s own son (Thomas Beck) is the real malefactor. Terrific ensemble includes Rochelle Hudson, Roger Imhof, Jane Darwell,Slim Summerville, and Sterling Holloway.
Doubting Thomas (1935)
Based on George Kelly’s 1992 Broadway hit The Torch Bearers, about a wife’s scatterbrained aspirations to go on the stage. Billie Burke supremely well cast as the wife, with Alison Skipworth, Sterling Holloway, Andrew Tombes,Gail Patrick, Frank Albertson, and Johnny Arthur.
Steamboat Round the Bend (1935)
Directed by Ford, this one may be Rogers’ best-known, most-seen movie, and it has a lot in common with such movies of the time as Show Boat and Tillie and Gus, not to mention Buster Keaton’s earlier Steamboat Bill, Jr. Cast features Anne Shirley, Irvin S. Cobb, Eugene Pallette, Francis Ford, Roger Imhof,Raymond Hatton, Hobart Bosworth, and Stepin Fetchit. Released posthumously.
In Old Kentucky (1935)
A horse race picture not unlike Capra’s Broadway Bill, it’s about two feuding families, who settle their problems at the track. Like ya do. Take special note of who gets second billing on this poster — it warms the heart. Bill Robinson was so loved by audiences at the time, that he rated such a consideration, and his part in the film merits it. This would never happen with Stepin Fetchit.
Fox’s next intended picture for Rogers was Everybody’s Old Man (1936) with Rochelle Hudson and Johnny Downs. After Rogers’ death, his role in the film was taken over by Irvin S. Cobb.
Posthumous depictions:
Like Ray Bolger and Fanny Brice, Rogers likely would have played himself in The Great Ziegfeld (1936). Due to his untimely demise he was played by a doppelganger named A.A. Trimble, who was in reality a Cleveland map salesman. Trimble also played him in the 1937 musical You’re a Sweetheart with Alice Faye, George Murphy, and Ken Murray. Will Rogers Jr took on the role in the 1949 Marilyn Miller bio-pic Look for the Silver Liningand The Story of Will Rogers(1952). As we’ve said, James Whitmore played him in one man shows for many years. And Keith Carradine played him on Broadway in The Will Rogers Follies (1991) and the film Mrs Parker and the Vicious Circle (1994).
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