State Fair

The Frake family go to the state fair in Iowa. The father is after a prize with his enormous hog, the mother enters her pickles and preserves. The two young ones, Margy and Wayne, run into things they had not expected on the fairground: one meets a newspaperman, the other a girl from a show. A few days later everyone goes home, and none of them is the same. Henry King's film is adapted from Phil Stong's 1932 novel and was nominated for Oscars for best picture and adapted screenplay. Will Rogers plays the father and Janet Gaynor the daughter. The same novel was filmed twice more afterwards, as musicals in 1945 and 1962. The telling builds no great event; it is a light, sweet record of a few days.