In Old Kentucky *** (1935, Will Rogers, Bill ‘Bojangles’ Robinson, Dorothy Wilson, Russell Hardie, Louise Henry, Charles Sellon) – Classic Movie Review 13,257

The 1935 American comedy drama film In Old Kentucky stars Will Rogers in his final release as a horse trainer caught between feuding families.

Director George Marshall’s 1935 American comedy drama film In Old Kentucky is based on the 1893 play by Charles T Dazey, and stars Will Rogers, Bill ‘Bojangles’ Robinson, Dorothy Wilson, Russell Hardie, Louise Henry, and Charles Sellon.

Will Rogers bows out with this pleasant country tale about a horse and a bet that finally puts an end to an inter-familial squabble up there in mountain country, as the feuding Martingale and Shattuck families decide to settle their dispute with a horse race between the favourites of each family. Will Rogers plays horse trainer Steve Tapley, who sides with young Nancy Martingale (Dorothy Wilson) and her grandfather Ezra (Charles Sellon), and their horse Greyboy that needs mud to run on.

Rogers’s good humour, Dorothy Wilson’s sweet appeal and Bill ‘Bojangles’ Robinson’s dancing may be simple, downhome entertainment, but all three stars prove still endearing.

Release date: November 22, 1935. It is Rogers’s final (posthumous) release, following Steamboat Round the Bend (released on September 6, 1935), which was actually made afterwards. Rural comic Rogers died in a small plane Alaskan air crash aged 55 on August 15, 1935, a year in which he made five movies. His son starred in his biopic The Story of Will Rogers in 1952. His 1927 autobiography was called There’s Not a Bathing Suit in Russia.

The cast are Will Rogers as Steve Tapley, Bill ‘Bojangles’ Robinson as Wash Jackson, Dorothy Wilson as Nancy Martingale, Russell Hardie as Dr Lee Andrews, Charles Sellon as Ezra Martingale, Louise Henry as Arlene Shattuck, Esther Dale as Dolly Breckenridge, Alan Dinehart as Slick Doherty, Charles Richman as Pole Shattuck, Etienne Girardot as Pluvius J Aspinwall, John Ince as Sheriff, and Alan Dinehart.

Greyboy the Horse plays Greyboy.

It was shot on location in Thousand Oaks, California, at both Deerwood Stock Farm and Borchard Ranch.

In Old Kentucky is directed by George Marshall, runs 86 minutes, is made by Fox Film Corporation, is released by Twentieth Century Fox, is written by Sam Hellman, Gladys Lehmann and Henry Johnson, is shot in black and white by L William O’Connell, is produced by Edward Butcher, and is scored by Arthur Lange.

It is a sound version of silent films In Old Kentucky (short 1909), In Old Kentucky (1919), and In Old Kentucky (1927).

William Penn Adair Rogers (November 4, 1879 – August 15, 1935

© Derek Winnert 2024 – Classic Movie Review 13,257

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