“In Old Kentucky” is a comedy film telling the story of two feuding families who decide to settle a dispute with a horse race. This “comedy” in reality provided few laughs and a weak storyline due to unfocused direction by George Marshall (“How the West Was Won” 1962) and a bad screenplay by Sam Hellman, Gladys Lehman, and Henry Johnson. It is mostly remembered as the final film of beloved “national comedian” Will Rogers, who perished in a plane crash in August, 1935, several months before the movie’s general release in November, 1935.
Co-stars include Dorothy Wilson, Russel Hardie, Esther Dale, John Ince, Charles Sellon, Louise Henry, Alan Dinehart, Charles Richman, Etienne Giraradot, and Bill Robinson providing some musical relief with his patented dance numbers. “In Old Kentucky” did have some success in theatrical relief for the Fox Film Corporation, which merged with Twentieth Century Pictures to form 20th Century Fox that same year.
In Old Kentucky (1935)
cinema
My Review
“In Old Kentucky” is a comedy film telling the story of two feuding families who decide to settle a dispute with a horse race. This “comedy” in reality provided few laughs and a weak storyline due to unfocused direction by George Marshall (“How the West Was Won” 1962) and a bad screenplay by Sam Hellman, Gladys Lehman, and Henry Johnson. It is mostly remembered as the final film of beloved “national comedian” Will Rogers, who perished in a plane crash in August, 1935, several months before the movie’s general release in November, 1935.
Co-stars include Dorothy Wilson, Russel Hardie, Esther Dale, John Ince, Charles Sellon, Louise Henry, Alan Dinehart, Charles Richman, Etienne Giraradot, and Bill Robinson providing some musical relief with his patented dance numbers. “In Old Kentucky” did have some success in theatrical relief for the Fox Film Corporation, which merged with Twentieth Century Pictures to form 20th Century Fox that same year.