Judge Priest (1934) Director: John Ford
“In the war of the rebellion?”
“No sir. In the war for the Southern Confederacy.”
Based on Irvin S. Cobb’s comical character Judge Priest, the figures in John Ford’s Judge Priest are described as “familiar ghosts” from Cobb’s own boyhood after the end of the “war between the states” (though he was actually born in the 1870s). The titular role in this film is played by folksy Native American actor, Will Rogers –one of his final roles before his untimely death due to an aviation accident in Alaska the following year in 1935. At the time, Rogers was one of the top paid actors in Hollywood.
Starring Will Rogers, Tom Brown, Henry B. Walthall, Stepin Fetchit, Hattie McDaniel (later of Gone with the Wind fame), we meet Circuit Court Judge William “Billy” Pitman Priest (Will Rogers) in the small Kentucky town of Fairfield in the 1890s –his wife Margaret and children have all died. He amusingly reads cartoons in the newspaper during trial. Later, his nephew Rome (Tom Brown) returns to Fairfield after passing the bar and he intends to continue his romance with Ellie May Gillespie (Anita Louise), even though she has been ignoring his letters and they face familial opposition to their union. In turn, a quirky barber named Flem Talley is also courting Ellie. Another character named Bob Gillis (David Landau) runs into scandal and faces a criminal trial which very nearly convicts him until a character testimony is given by Reverend Ashby Brand (Henry B. Walthall), who attests to his courage in the Confederate army. A Dixieland band of black minstrels plays “I Wish I Was In Dixie.” Thus, the film concludes on a triumphant note with a spontaneous parade of Confederate veterans marching through the streets, waving the stars and bars, celebrating the old Confederacy.
This kind of vulgar propaganda was rife throughout early Hollywood –indeed, actor Henry B. Walthall also played the controversial Little Colonel character in D.W. Griffith’s blatantly racist The Birth of a Nation (arguably the first big Hollywood epic), and Judge Priest likewise portrays the Reconstruction South as essentially a world free of problems, blissful, carefree, with distinguished, noble white southerners lording over child-like black people. The quality of this film is considerably poor and it features more than a few absolutely outrageous racist caricatures which cast a pall over the film. At least Canadian actor Berton Churchill delivers a hilariously aloof performance as Senator Horace Maydew (much like his memorable role as the secretive banker in John Ford’s Stagecoach in 1939). Judge Priest also features impressive editing, particularly in the closing scenes with a Civil War flashback sequence spliced over Reverend Ashby Brand’s rousing courtroom testimony. But with that being said, Judge Priest strikes me as a deeply flawed film that panders to some of the worst instincts in American culture and I would not soon revisit it.
Credits:
- Directed by: John Ford
- Written by: Irvin S. Cobb, Dudley Nichols, Lamar Trotti
- Produced by: Sol M. Wurtzel
- Starring:
- Will Rogers…..Judge William ‘Billy’ Priest
- Tom Brown…..Jerome Priest
- Anita Louise…..Ellie May Gillespie
- Henry B. Walthall…..Reverend Ashby Brand
- David Landau…..Bob Gillis
- Hattie McDaniel…..Aunt Dilsey
- Stepin Fetchit…..Jeff Poindexter
- Cinematography: George Schneiderman
- Edited by: Paul Weatherwax
- Production Company: Fox Film Corporation
Bob Gillis, not Flem Talley, is the character you refer to as almost being convicted. Flem is the barber who seeks revenge on Gillis when he hits him for his semi slander of his daughter, Ellie May Gillespie. No one knows that Elli May is Bob Gillis’ daughter. He has to go to court and the reverend tells the story of his service in the Confederacy, not Flem Talley.
Okey dokey. Thanks for stopping by!