Steamboat Round the Bend

In 1890s Mississippi, Doctor John Pearly, who sells fake medicine, needs to find the witness who can save his nephew Duke from execution, and enters a steamboat race. John Ford directed. The weight is not in the plot but in Will Rogers's presence; he does not seem to be speaking to a camera so much as talking with the audience. It was Rogers's last film. He died in a plane crash on 15 August 1935 and the film was released a month later. Anne Shirley plays Fleety Belle and Irvin S. Cobb plays Captain Eli. It runs 82 minutes, was made for Fox and took 1,528,000 dollars in rentals. Who it is for: viewers curious about thirties American rural comedy and Ford's lighter register. Who it is not for: anyone watching by current standards. Some of the characterisation, particularly the use of Black characters, carries the conventions of its era and is not defensible.