Cinema Revisited: David Harum (1934)

Directed by James Cruz. Starring Will Rogers, Louise Dresser, Evelyn Venable, Kent Taylor, Stepin Fetchit, Noah Beery, Charles Middleton. Released March 2, 1934. Running time: 83 minutes.

We have to put into perspective just how popular humorist Will Rogers was in his lifetime. He was consistently among the top box office draws. In fact he, Eddie Cantor, and Joe E. Brown were the only comedians to make that list during the 1930s. W.C. Fields, Laurel and Hardy, and The Marx Brothers did not.

"David Harum" was one of Fox studio's biggest moneymaking hit movies of 1934, and it is mostly due to Will Rogers' homespun comic character, exhibiting a warmth and pleasantness that must have been truly comforting to Depression-era moviegoers.

There is some backstory to "David Harum." It was originally written by Edward Noyes Westcott, a banker, back in 1895 and 1896 while he was suffering from tuberculosis. The book was not published until 1898, the same year the author died. It became a million seller. The first film version of the story was in 1915, but this 1934 features is the more noted version. The movie was advertised as "America's biggest box office star playing America's most beloved fiction character. Critics called it Rogers' best, and subsequent films featuring the comedian were compared to "David Harum." Still, it is today a rather forgotten film, overlooked among Will Rogers' movies.

Because the book, about a banker who engages in horse trading with fervent pleasure, the casting of Will Rogers in this movie version is curious. In the book, Harum is a crusty skin flint. However, Rogers plays the character as homespun and generally beloved -- in essence, David Harum becomes Will Rogers not the other way around. The gist of the story is a rivalry between Harum and the town deacon (Charles Middleton) who sticks him with a blind horse. However, it is discovered that the horse responds to hearing a song, and ends up beating the deacon's horse in a race. The part during the race where the entire audience sings "Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay" to inspire the horse to win, is one of the most delightful scenes in the movie.

Rogers and Middleton shuffle around each other during each trade, never really looking each other in the eye. They whittle, they toss rings, and engage in other distracting activities while engaged in their horse trading. There is a tangential romance between characters played by Evelyn Venable and Kent Taylor, while broader comedy is offered by the stereotypical Stepin Fetchit.

Already a period piece in 1934, being set during the late 19th century, in the 21st century the film represents another era in American cinema as much as the story represents another period in American culture. The sort of homespun homilies of Will Rogers now has an appeal as historical document. Rogers had been a star of the Ziegfeld Follies, and did some silent comedies for the Hal Roach studios. Being more of a verbal comic, Rogers fared much better in his features at Fox during the early sound era. And the films were enormously profitable. When Rogers was killed in a plane crash in 1935, Fox rebounded with Shirley Temple as the star who delighted Depression America.

The success of the slowly paced "David Harum" during the year that Hollywood also offered such faster paced comedies as "It Happened One Night," "The Thin Man," "Twentieth Century," and It's a Gift," is further testament to Will Rogers' appeal during that time. Even stretching across nearly nine decades, the relaxed pleasantness of Will Rogers still manages to exude the same sort of warmth to the open minded viewer. The narrative is essentially the characters. The direction is spotlighting these characters. And the actors envelope the traits of those characters. Except for Will Rogers. He, himself, was already a character; one that transcended the trappings of the literary figure he was playing. It is he that makes the film what it is. At a recent screening, Will Rogers' granddaughter called "David Harum" her favorite among her grandfather's films. Screening it now, one can understand why.