Tweet Will Rogers in Dr. Bull

I'm working my way through the Ford at Fox set (rather, the 3 mini-collections) and started with Dr. Bull last night. I've seen this before, but having watched it after becoming more familiar with the Rogers ouvre, I became aware of just what a radical departure it was from the Rogers formula in previous and subsequent films. He usually plays one of two characterizations: the wise and beloved father-figure putting up with his flighty family, or the wise and beloved fool-osopher putting up with silly townsfolk.

But as Dr. Bull, Rogers shows a real dark side, not the least of which comes out when he inadvertantly causes a typhoid epidemic by failing to inspect the water runoff from a construction camp upstream from the town. Rogers is the town's health officer and when the townspeople justifiably accuse him of deriliction of duty, his response is, "Who has time to run around inspecting water!". When attacked by the townsfolk for his role in this catastrophe, Bull lashes back at them with real venom, telling them they are unworthy of the medical services he's provided over a lifetime. So much for never meeting a man he didn't like.

Bull quells the epidemic (cheerfully testing a veterinary vaccine meant for cows on an adult, then administering it to children), but finally decides to make good on his threat and leaves town for good.

It's a great pre-code film which manages to work in references from the recently lifted Prohibition to pre-marital sex (Andy Devine forced into a shotgun marriage). IMO this is Rogers' best performance by far and shows that he really could act when paired with a great director.

BTW, the print is just OK but the soundtrack is very muddy. A title card in the beginning explains that Fox Home Video was working with the best surviving materials.

As it happens, I've been watching all of the Rogers films on his own sets recently. Finished vol. 1 and almost finished vol. 2 (only "David Harum" left to go).

I'm glad I already knew Rogers through some bios, a collection of his monologues, and a few of his silent films, because these talkies wouldn't make me a convert.

They aren't bad movies. They're just clearly B pictures (the backdrops in "Mr. Skitch" are about the lousiest since the days of Mack Sennett) and this is in spite of the directorial talent involved -- James Cruze, John Ford, etc. (I think Leo McCarey too?) ain't cheese. I just get the feeling in every film that they were making episode #22 of season 7 of "The Beverly Hillbillies" ... never the impression that they felt they wanted to make the best picture possible.

The most successful, I think, was "Too Busy to Work". It's an odd blend of humour and deep, bitter pathos. If the humour was more gallows oriented the film would probably hang together more effectively; as it stands, it's like a comedy and a melodrama edited together, a Harry Langdon talkie interspersed with key scenes from a Barbara Stanwyck weepie. Both the Langdon and the Stanwyck films are good, but they don't mesh with each other's mood very well.

Jim

[Mike Gebert]

Not entirely nitpicky: they're not B pictures. A B was designed to be supporting to an A. Monogram made Bs to fit under MGM's As. What they are, is programmers. A programmer was a modestly-made 75-minute movie featuring a star in exactly the kind of role you'd expect him to be in. All those Cagney movies from the early 30s-- Blonde Crazy/Taxi/Lady Killer etc.-- those are programmers, as opposed to, say, A Midsummer Night's Dream. Rogers wouldn't have been a B star at Fox, where he was probably their second biggest star (after Miss Temple). But he did make programmers.

This is not just nitpicking because I think you hit on a central point about them-- in a lot of ways they were more like modern series television than modern event movies. (Of course, in some cases-- Charlie Chan, Tarzan-- programmers were even more like series television.) Make half a dozen of them per year, follow a strict formula about who the star is and what lesson he learns, hardly change the supporting cast, keep the budget low-- all that's as comfy and assembly-line as a modern-day sitcom, unlike movies today where even when there are sequels, they have to get bigger with each one (which is why they usually poop out around #3).

So yeah, Rogers, it's hard to see now what people loved about him, but I feel that way about Archie Bunker or Hawkeye Pierce, too. I did enjoy The County Chairman at Cinevent a few years back, though.

Having grown up in northeastern Oklahoma, I know a lot about Will Rogers. He was unique as movie stars go. Imagine a star who wrote a daily newspaper column, was a regular on radio, represented his government while visiting overseas disaster areas, spoke at political conventions and if he had agreed, probably could have gotten the democratic nomination for President. He only became the 2nd most popular star the last year before his death. He was number one for several years before that.

I used to work as production manager for the PBS station in Tulsa. My GM agreed to help out the WR Memorial in nearby Claremore. A van would occasionally come out from the Memorial filled with 16mm prints and blank 3/4 videotape. Over about a six month period, I transfered all the prints they had to tape. Quite a few silents, and nearly all the Fox features. While they did seem to be very similar, I found most to be very enjoyable.

I'm glad I already knew Rogers through some bios, a collection of his monologues, and a few of his silent films, because these talkies wouldn't make me a convert.

Contrary to popular opinion, I've always though that the John Ford-Will Rogers films were among the stars weaker efforts. "Dr. Bull" is indeed interesting, and hardly typical, but it also lacks the charm that made Rogers appealing.

I've always felt the two best Rogers pictures were the two made by George Marshall, "Life Begins at 40" and "In Old Kentucky."

At their best (State Fair, David Harum, The County Chairman, A Connecticut Yankee) the Rogers pictures need no apolgies. At their worst (Mr. Sitch, Lightnin', They Had to See Paris) no explanation can be sufficient to make them palatable today. The ford-Rogers collaborations fall somewhere in the middle for me.

Of course Mike is absolutely right -- the term "programmers" didn't occur to me while I was writing my previous post, but that is exactly what the Rogers films are.

Last night I ran "David Harum", and it was the very definition of a programmer. This was possibly the most consistently absorbing of the 8 films in the two sets. It lacked the emotional impact of "Too Busy to Work", but hung together much better, and the humour (which was amusing without being funny enough to elicit more than two laughs) was very smoothly fitted into the story.

The business of the horse-race and the nag responding to song was silly and perfunctory -- it was as though they knew they had to have some kind of climax upon which to close the film, and this was the desultory idea they finally stitched into a decent yarn at 3:30 in the morning. It was harmless but somehow not quite in the same mood of quasi-realism that the rest of the film presented.

I must add that Rogers' films in these two collections co-starred some of the most odd-beautiful young ladies I've seen. Rochelle Hudson, Evelyne Venable, Marian Nixon ... lovely girls, but each with something a little bit off-kilter in their looks. Venable had those chipmunk cheeks, Hudson seemed cross-eyed, Nixon's features didn't quite fit her head shape... I was half in love with each of them, and might have gone completely in love if they hadn't all been so damned SKINNY!!!

Jim

Of course Mike is absolutely right -- the term "programmers" didn't occur to me while I was writing my previous post, but that is exactly what the Rogers films are.

I must add that Rogers' films in these two collections co-starred some of the most odd-beautiful young ladies I've seen. Rochelle Hudson, Evelyne Venable, Marian Nixon ... lovely girls, but each with something a little bit off-kilter in their looks.

I'm going to disagree with the earlier poster, and with you, on the issue of the Togers pictures being programmera. They may be formulaic, but they are clearly "A" pictures from the standpoint of star power (Rogers was #1 at the box-office during much of his sound career), the directors who made them--John Ford, Henry King, Frank Borzage, Sam Taylor, James Cruze, et. al. and from the top-notch supporting casts and the overall budgets and running times for the films.

You may be doing the films a disservice by watching them in the comfort of your own home. We ran "Life Begins at 40" at Cinecon 40 three years ago, and there were major belly laughs from the audience throughout. [by the same token, a picture like "It Happened One Night" only becomes a "comedy" when you see it with an audience and realize the laughs it generates].

Even the ladies you mention, though they are certainly playing ingenue roles in the Rogers pivtures, were pretty well established leading ladies. "Chipmunk cheeks" and all, I was always in love with Evelyn Venable, with that wonderful lilt in her voice. After giving up acting (she was also the voice of the fairy in "Pinocchio") she went to school to study Greek and when I first met her she was a professor of Greek at UCLA.

You may be doing the films a disservice by watching them in the comfort of your own home. We ran "Life Begins at 40" at Cinecon 40 three years ago, and there were major belly laughs from the audience throughout. [by the same token, a picture like "It Happened One Night" only becomes a "comedy" when you see it with an audience and realize the laughs it generates].

I was in the audience at that Cinecon screening of "Life Begins At 40" and it was a major revelation to me. I had recently seen a number of the Rogers films on Fox Movie Channel and other than "State Fair", I thought they were pleasant, but nothing special. "Life Begins At 40" is a charmer and seeing it with an audience, the whole Rogers persona came to life. As you say, his humor truly does seem to work much better with an audience.

The Rogers films were certainly released as A pictures -- as Bob points out, he was a major star and was given major directors (I made that point earlier myself) and was surrounded with what passed at Fox for major leading ladies. But the scripts, production values, and overall feel of the films were those of programmers, assembly-line products.

Audience reaction will rarely if ever have any impact on me -- how could it, when I can't hear laughter? I watch many films at home with my kids, but I know how they will each react to anything on screen (Peter will kill himself laughing at violent comedy of any kind, Genevieve will never crack a smile and then later tell me the film was hilarious, Monika will watch anything with the same placid response, Emerson likes verbal comedy but also reveres Keaton), so what I see of their reactions is only what I expect and thus will not have an influence on my perception of the film.

So my evaluation of film comedy is simple: does it make ME laugh?

As I mentioned in my first post in this thread, I know Rogers through his books and his silent films which I really enjoyed. I have no problem with his character or his approach to humour. I know the 8 talkies I've now seen are true to the character and humour he presented in vaudeville, silent films, print, radio, and speech, so I don't have any problem with them in that respect, either.

His silent films make me laugh. His talkies amuse me but seldom make me laugh out loud. He's got wittier lines in his books and vaud routines; they actually don't seem as funny when he speaks them on screen ... and that's even with me reading the captions (replicating the experience of reading his wit in print). So even if I could hear laughter in a public showing, I doubt I would find the talkies any funnier than I do now.

But that's just me. And -- without vanity -- I am obviously a special case.

I know the rest of you are powerfully influenced by the sound on the talkies, the music accompanying silents, etc. It does interest me to read your reactions to those factors. It also makes me realize that for you, what makes the difference between funny and not-so-funny can in some cases have almost nothing to do with whether the spoken words are actually funny in themselves, and everything to do with the accent of the voice that speaks them, the music that accompanies them, the sound effects that punctuate them, and whether 200 other people are laughing. It sure makes for some interesting comparisons in my own mind!

Jim

Of course Mike is absolutely right -- the term "programmers" didn't occur to me while I was writing my previous post, but that is exactly what the Rogers films are.

I'm going to disagree with the earlier poster, and with you, on the issue of the Togers pictures being programmera. They may be formulaic, but they are clearly "A" pictures from the standpoint of star power (Rogers was #1 at the box-office during much of his sound career), the directors who made them--John Ford, Henry King, Frank Borzage, Sam Taylor, James Cruze, et. al. and from the top-notch supporting casts and the overall budgets and running times for the films.

I guess I still need to wrap my mind around what makes a programmer different from a B--I think I've read that B pictures as such are more a product of double feature bills of the early 30s than previous years, yet there seem to be some gradations. The major studios of the 20s must have released some features, even with notable stars, that weren't given the same care and attention as their big productions. Yet there were also studios like Chadwick, FBO, Banner, et al. that seemed to specialise in lesser films with former stars or mid-level performers that don't seem all that different from what Mayfair, Sono-Art, Big 4, et al. were doing in the early 30s. Does the difference lie in marketing and theatrical showings rather than content per se?

-Harold

[Mike Gebert]

I think at a certain point you hit the fact that the same term meant a different level of production value at different studios. MGM, for instance, claimed they only made As. (Remember the line the studio chief barks at Barton Fink about there being no such thing as a B picture at his studio-- that's a real quote from Mayer.) This was, as Thomas Schatz shows in The Genius of the System, in large part because MGM, or their parent co. Loews, owned big city movie palaces, and so they needed big event movies that could hold up their end of a grandiose show. So MGM stars appeared in lavish movies, usually 90-100 minutes long, full of dazzling costumes and big sets and a general money-is-no-object look.

Now, the major stars at Warners in the early 30s also made what Warners considered As-- but the typical film for James Cagney, Ruth Chatterton, Kay Francis or Richard Barthelmess in this time was 70 to 80 minutes long and done in that quintessential Warner Bros. style of fairly static dialogue scenes done at a fast pace on none-too-lavish sets, separated by montages which advance the story by clever use of stock footage. (Running time proves to be a remarkably good indicator of where a studio stood in the Hollywood pecking order-- look at the chart here.) They were also cranked out at a much faster pace-- Norma Shearer made five films at MGM between 1932 and 1936; Bette Davis at Warner Brothers made that many in each of 1934, 1935 and 1937.

This is what I'm calling programmers. Bob Birchard disagrees with that because he suggests that "programmer" means a clearcut B-- and Bette Davis, Oscar winner, wasn't making Bs, and neither was Will Rogers, #2 star at Fox. So here we get into the problem that there's no agreement on what the term means. Nevertheless, I find it useful for denoting that in-between film (which is somewhat supported by usage at the time*) which is neither an unalloyed A nor a clear B, which is made economically and quickly (unlike an MGM A), yet which has someone who ranks near the top of a studio's roster of stars.

The clearest distinction-- and this is the real answer to your question-- is that programmers and As and Bs actually belong to somewhat different time periods. There's a good explanation of this in Kings of the Bs, which unfortunately I can't find at the moment, so forgive me for anything I get wrong. Programmers could be played solo (that is, as the main attraction along with a lengthy program of shorts, newsreels, live acts, who knows what), or as support to a clear A. Over time, however, the A and B system developed as the standard program, in which the A got most of the revenue on a double bill, and the distinction between A and B was much more obvious. So by the mid to late 30s, Warners is no longer making five 70 minute James Cagney movies a year, they're making two 90 minute ones, and many of their films are quite lavishly budgeted-- e.g., Captain Blood, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Life of Emile Zola, Jezebel, etc., each of which must have cost more than any movie they made in the early 30s (at least after the likes of Noah's Ark and Kismet). And no one would have ever played one of them as support to something else. The studios also had their B units, committed to turning out series-TV-like product at a controlled cost, and of course B studios filled that niche making only movies for that position on the bill at a similarly tightly controlled budget level.

All this shows is that it's impossible to assign a fixed identity to a lot of these things; I think "programmer" is a useful term for that early 30s space between obvious As and obvious Bs, the A minuses/B pluses with major stars but cranked out like series TV, but many would say that's wrong (and that there is no word for what I'm describing). I think William K. Everson supports my use of the term, and I'll see if I can find the place where he does that, but in the meantime, it makes sense to me.

*"The leading studios made not only clear-cut A and B films, but also movies classifiable as "programmers" (also "in-betweeners" or "intermediates"): "Depending on the prestige of the theater and the other material on the double bill, a programmer could show up at the top or bottom of the marquee." --Wikipedia (see note #12 as well) Some might still argue that a Cagney starrer wasn't a programmer, though-- a 70-minute Pat O'Brien starrer, yes, a Cagney starrer, no.

All this shows is that it's impossible to assign a fixed identity to a lot of these things; I think "programmer" is a useful term for that early 30s space between obvious As and obvious Bs, the A minuses/B pluses with major stars but cranked out like series TV, but many would say that's wrong (and that there is no word for what I'm describing). I think William K. Everson supports my use of the term, and I'll see if I can find the place where he does that, but in the meantime, it makes sense to me.

Everson talks about this in American Silent film. If I may quote he says:

"A programmer lies midway between a "B" picture and an "A" picture. It is short and economical, but usually is just long enough or possessed of sufficient plot, star, or other values to find it's own level in a theatrical program-as a support, as a co-feature, as a top-of-the-bill feature or as a solo feature, depending largely upon the location of the theatre and the type of film."

Everson talks about this in American Silent film. If I may quote he says:

"A programmer lies midway between a "B" picture and an "A" picture. It is short and economical, but usually is just long enough or possessed of sufficient plot, star, or other values to find it's own level in a theatrical program-as a support, as a co-feature, as a top-of-the-bill feature or as a solo feature, depending largely upon the location of the theatre and the type of film."

Remember that film programming evolved from vaudeville, so placement, rank & billing were all important. On the flip side, some people would go to the movies simply because they were showing the latest Mickey Mouse cartoon. That was why such variety was offered on a film bill. Nevertheless, if a Programmer was still the headliner of the bill, whether the bill consisted of a double feature, or a feature and a stage show, the Programmer was still the *A* attraction.

The "short and economical" description of programmer is fine, except that as a result, "programmer" would describe most Hollywood movies (and 99 percent of the films made at Warner Bros) in 1932-33. The budget restrictions of those years sort of change the rules, and (to bring it back to the subject) DR. BULL falls into this exception.

[Mike Gebert]

Well, now we're down to the definition changing year by year. Which I guess is an important point, that all these terms remained fluid as the marketplace evolved.

I guess for me, "programmer" is a reasonable way to describe the difference between Lady Killer and Yankee Doodle Dandy or Fog Over Frisco and The Little Foxes, and though somewhat ahistorical (or at least stretching to the limit how the term was used then), keeps economically made and brisk, but major star, productions from the early 30s with being lumped in with later (also economically made and brisk, but definitely second tier) B movies, where they really don't belong.

Getting back to the charactor portrayed by Mr. Rogers Mike asserts that it is always a variation of the all-knowing, wisest sage around town. As a movie set-up that sort of charactor would certainly work for a few films and be successful at it but to base a 6 year career on it (obviously, I'm just referring to his talkies) and to stay in the top 10 box office figures at that time there had to be more nuance to it or the public would get fed up with that "know-it-all."

When I watch his films I get a sense that he is the saniest man in a world of insanity but he is rarely morally perfect. He is usually a combination of an idler, one who loves to gossip, a busybody, a contrarian, and a town misfit. For although he is usually shown to have a respected job in town he is still subjected to much idle talk by the towns upper crusts. And this brings forward the main thrust of many of his films -- attacking hypocrisy.

This theme really comes to a head in his films with Ford. In the "Dr Bull" example cited earlier, the reason that Rogers' charactor refuses to help the town at first is because of their unwarrented attack on his "lady friend" questioning her morals. He basically says "damn you all!"
In "Steamboat Round The Bend" he plays a more wiley charactor -- his good friend W.C. Fields could of enacted the part (with variations) -- but once again he meets Southern ignorance head on. In what I find to be
my favorite Ford collaboration,"Judge Priest" has him at odds with a local senator who wants his election seat -- not because of that man's love of justice but merely for the prestige of it -- and his own sister-in-law who objects to a union between her daughter and Roger's nephew.
(Roger's always had nephews to propel the plot along)
Class and hypocrisy keeps him muttering a mile a minute in these films. His asides in "Judge Priest" are hilarious but not in the way that I can recite every line of dialogue that Groucho says in "Horsefeathers." I couldn't tell you one line Rogers says in "Priest" and yet every scene he has with Stephin Fetchit he is either mumbling insults toward him or scheming with him to upset the towns equalibrium. He performs the same act when he is presiding over cases. Instead of handing down verdicts he talks to himself over whether so-and-so should save the county time and money and just hang themselves.
This is not a morally superior man. This is an honest man who refuses to lecture the world on what is right but will talk to himself on injustices that he sees.
We just happen to be able to hear him speak to himself.

Gary J.

[Mike Gebert]

One reason I think Rogers had appeal then that's hard to recapture now is precisely because of the whole small town milieu you describe. If you lived in or near a small town then-- and over half the US population was farm workers then-- you pretty much knew the same people all your life, they pretty much knew you, in fact you were all intimately aware of each other's foibles, failings, etc. So when you describe him as saying out loud what everyone was muttering to themselves, that's a perfect description of what people wished they could do-- say all those things they felt about their neighbors, but wouldn't dare; show everyone that they were smarter than the rest of them, but in a way that earns accolades at the end or at least ends happily, not in a way that makes everybody hate you. It's a very mild, but satisfying, form of rebellion which lets you come out on top without wrecking the local peace and social order-- essential in a world where everybody was pretty much stuck with everybody else for life. By comparison, today we can all pack up and leave and find new friends at the drop of a hat, so our rebels need not be so cautious about trashing everyone and everything around them.

I agree with your ideas of why Rogers appealed to audiences. You also have to remember that even without the movies, he was one of the most popular men in the country. His newspaper columns and radio shows helped form public opinion. It's like he had a presold audience waiting out there for him. It helps that his films were very good IMO.

I think the idea of the programmer arose much earlier. A typical A star at, say Paramount around 1919 or 1920 would appear in a lot of pictures each year, with most of them decent but unremarkable, with one or two big-budget productions. The stars would carry the smaller pictures and be raised up by the big budget ones, and the people would keep coming in In the late 1920s, Clara Bow's producer was complaining that she was not appearing in enough strong vehicles to keep up interest and in the 1930s Richard Dix would be in three or four virtual Bs at RKO and then one big-budget A.


Bob