Binging on John Ford, Part 7: The Civil War, Will Rogers and Stepin Fetchit

Stepin Fetchit and Will Rogers in
Judge Priest

A recurrent theme in many of Ford's early sound pictures is the Lost Cause syndrome of the Civil War which portrays those who fought for the Confederacy as noble, rough-hewn gentlemen fighting for a legitimate, almost holy way of life rather than insurrectionists battling for the right to hold slaves. I recently acquired a box set of DVDs called Ford at Fox: John Ford' American Comedies from eBay for $16. The set contains three 1930s films starring popular American humorist Will Rogers, two of which rely heavily on the Lost Cause mythos. These two--Judge Priest and Steamboat Round the Bend also star Stepin Fetchit, the African-American actor (real name Lincoln Perry) who perpetuated the stereotype of a lazy, subservient black man (More on that later.) I also caught up with Rio Grande (also from eBay in an individual DVD), the third of Ford's Cavalry trilogy, also replete with Civil War themes.

Rogers was an immensely popular entertainer who rose to prominence by performing fancy rope tricks while cracking wise on current events. He started in vaudeville and then was featured in the Ziegfeld Follies before moving on to feature films. He always played a variation on himself, the relaxed, lovable wise rube dispensing front-porch wisdom. In his three films directed by Ford, Rogers doesn't even seem to be acting, but reacting to the situation while most of his co-stars gave stagey performances. According to the commentary by Ford biographer Scott Eyman (Print the Legend), Ford would give Rogers the script, but told him not to memorize any lines because they would come out phony. He should just get the sense of the scene and say the lines in his own way. Rogers is charming and relaxed in all three Ford comedies which do convey a rustic, warm mood. But they also reflect the prejudices of their time. According to Ford, the Civil War was a tragic conflict between equally well-intended adversaries and the slavery issue was just a minor footnote producing comic relief characters. (You can also see this in the obscure Prisoner of Shark Island.)