Judge Priest

Judge Priest is an uneven comedy-drama whose chief attraction is Will Rogers. John Ford gives him the central role, and Rogers supplies enough personality to make the film agreeable without making it particularly satisfying. The trouble is a thin story, which keeps asking the appeal of its leading man to compensate for what the writing has not supplied. At 80 minutes, it is a modest commitment, though brevity does not make its loose construction disappear.

Rogers plays Judge William Pitman ‘Billy’ Priest, and the confidence with which he inhabits the character is the film’s strongest asset. We enjoyed his comedy; it gave us a reason to remain interested when the story did not. There is a distinction between making a character pleasant company and giving that character something compelling to do, and the film depends heavily on the former. Rogers makes that dependence bearable, but we kept wishing the material would offer him more resistance.

The screenplay credits belong to Lamar Trotti and Dudley Nichols, with Irvin S. Cobb credited as writer. The mixture of comedy, drama and romance promises several ways into the film, yet the ingredients do not acquire enough force together. A slight story can work perfectly well if its smaller incidents accumulate into something richer. Here, the looseness too often feels like an excuse to postpone the business of developing one, leaving Rogers responsible for sustaining our attention.

The attempts at local colour are a further difficulty because they need to provide interest where the plotting is spare. Some are less persuasive than the central performance, and the film’s pleasure becomes intermittent rather than cumulative. We do not need every detail to advance a plot, or every supporting character to arrive carrying an explanation. We do need those details to make the company more absorbing, and too much here seems content merely to accompany the judge.

George Schneiderman is the cinematographer, Paul Weatherwax the editor and Samuel Kaylin supplies the music. The weakness we would put first, however, is the writing: nothing in the film’s presentation makes the story feel sufficiently developed. Its loose assembly matters because the comedy has to keep renewing our interest without much help from what happens next. A more insistent pace would not necessarily improve that; the material needs substance rather than simply less time between its attractions.

Ford’s undertaking is appealing enough: a comedy-drama that makes room for a central personality instead of requiring constant incident. Measured against that aim, Rogers is a considerable success, and it would be ungenerous to dismiss the film as merely inadequate. But affection for a performer has limits, especially when the surrounding material provides so little pressure or surprise. Seek it out for Rogers if his company is the attraction; do not expect the story to earn an equal share of the evening.