Steamboat Round the Bend **** (1935, Will Rogers, Anne Shirley, Eugene Pallette) – Classic Movie Review 13,258

John Ford’s 1935 film Steamboat Round the Bend stars Will Rogers on top form in his last film role as the decrepit boat captain, Dr John Pearly.

Director John Ford’s 1935 film Steamboat Round the Bend is based on the novel by Ben Lucien Burman, and stars Will Rogers, Anne Shirley, Eugene Pallette, John McGuire, Irvin S Cobb, and Stepin Fetchit.

In 1935 John Ford directs ideal material for him – a traditional saga of rivalry between steamer captains. This is a fantastic water-bound comedy Western that Ford manages to open out into a humane view of the the river and its inhabitants. An old workhorse of a plot is dressed up in bright rags and given a new lease of life thanks to enthusiastic acting and George Schneiderman’s brilliant cinematography.

The movie is full of lovely moments, but none is better than the final steamboat race sequence. Will Rogers is on top form in his last film role as the decrepit boat captain, Dr John Pearly, and screen-writers Dudley Nichols and Lamar Trotti’s plot (based on a novel by Ben Lucien Burman) focuses on his bid to prove that John McGuire’s character Duke did not commit a murder. Anne Shirley plays McGuire’s lover who joins Rogers in his quest to find a vital defence witness.

Will Rogers plays the Louisiana con man who enters his steamboat in a winner-take-all race in the 1890s with a rival captain, Eli (Irvin S Cobb), while meanwhile trying to find the eyewitness to save his nephew Duke, wrongly convicted of murder.

Steamboat Round the Bend was released on September 6, 1935, but Rogers’s final (posthumous) release In Old Kentucky was actually made before it, and was released afterwards on November 22, 1935.

The cast are Will Rogers as Doctor John Pearly, Anne Shirley as Fleety Belle, Irvin S Cobb as Captain Eli, Eugene Pallette as Sheriff Rufe Jeffers, John McGuire as Duke, Berton Churchill as New Moses, Francis Ford as Efe, Roger Imhof as Breck’s Pappy, Raymond Hatton as Matt Abel, Hobart Bosworth as Chaplain, Stepin Fetchit as Jonah, Roger Imhoff, Louis Mason, Charles B Middleton, Si Jenks, Jack Pennick, William Benedict, Lois Verner, Fred Kohler Jr, Hobart Cavanaugh, Ben Hall, Del Henderson, Ferdinand Munier, and Luke Cosgrave.

Steamboat Round the Bend is directed by John Ford, runs 82 minutes, is made by Fox Film Corporation, is released by 20th Century Fox, is written by Dudley Nichols and Lamar Trotti, is shot in Black and White by George Schneiderman, is produced by Sol M Wurtzel, is scored by Samuel Kaylin, and is designed by William S Darling.

John Ford’s 1934 film Judge Priest also stars Will Rogers.

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

Rural comic Will 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.

© Derek Winnert 2024 – Classic Movie Review 13,258

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