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15 out of 18 people found the following comment useful :-
Will Rogers' swan song is Americana with a Dixie flavor, 13 April 2002
6/10
Author: wmorrow59 from Westchester County, NY

This movie was shown recently as part of a large-scale comedy retrospective at Film Forum in New York, but it seemed out of place there alongside the likes of the Marx Brothers and Mae West. STEAMBOAT ROUND THE BEND is an interesting and unusual film with occasional comic touches, but it's primarily a serious tale with strong elements of melodrama. The story is set in the 1890s, and rich period atmosphere is one of the film's strongest assets. Although it's not based on a Mark Twain story director John Ford captures that Old Times on the Mississippi flavor better than a lot of movies based on Twain's books. Ultimately this is a rich slice of Americana with a distinct Southern bias. That's all well and good if you have an interest in American history as depicted in Hollywood films of this period, but viewers expecting non-stop laughs will be disappointed. Baby boomers who grew up watching TV in the '60s might find that STEAMBOAT ROUND THE BEND reminds them of The Andy Griffith Show: it has the same relaxed tempo, presents a similarly benign view of Southern life (with the stark exception of one sequence, which I'll discuss in a moment), and has as its leading man a very low-key guy.

Here, as in his other talkies, Will Rogers ambles through the proceedings in a seemingly casual fashion. He was unlike any other star of his time-- or since, really --and viewers who've never seen one of his movies might find him a little odd at first. Like his friend W.C. Fields, Rogers refused to rehearse his scenes and insisted on doing a minimal number of takes even if he fluffed his lines, which he often did. His acting is so offhand, and so unlike the polished Hollywood performance style of his day, a first-time viewer might mistake him for an amateur who somehow wandered onto the set. Once you adjust to his naturalistic style, however, Rogers' special talent becomes obvious, and it's the other actors who start looking theatrical and phony. Aside from the lead the most memorable performances in this film are given by the growly-voiced Eugene Palette, who gets most of the laughs, and bright-eyed Anne Shirley, who holds her own with Rogers in their scenes together.

STEAMBOAT ROUND THE BEND is probably best known as Will Rogers' swan song, the last project he finished before his death in a plane crash, but like much of his work it never had a legitimate video release, most likely because of the presence of the notorious African-American comedian Stepin Fetchit. When several Rogers movies were released on video a few years back the ones featuring Fetchit were skipped, probably because modern day audiences are uncomfortable with the 'comedy relief' found therein, and for good reason: Stepin Fetchit is painful to watch. Anyone who seeks proof of Hollywood racism need look no further than films of the '30s in which he was featured. For those who haven't seen him, it might help to explain that despite the sound of his name and what it implies, Stepin Fetchit was Hollywood's favorite lazy simpleton, a woozy scamp with a slow-as-molasses delivery almost impossible to decipher. He comes off as heavily sedated, or even mentally retarded. Who could laugh at this sort of thing today? In recent years a few film critics and historians (including some African-American ones) have taken a more sympathetic view of Fetchit's career and have made positive assertions about what he was able to accomplish within the confines of the demeaning roles he was given. Well, whatever. Where this movie is concerned I'll note simply that Fetchit's screen time is mercifully limited and that the film has only a minimal amount of racial humor. In fact, about halfway through there is a remarkable sequence in which attitudes of the Old South are satirized in a surprising fashion.

To set the scene: Rogers (playing Dr. John), with the help of Anne Shirley (Fleety Belle) is attempting to raise money to pay legal fees to save his nephew from the gallows. They are sailing up and down the Mississippi in his old steamboat with a small crew (including Stepin Fetchit as Jonah), carrying what's left of the dummies from a defunct wax museum, charging riverfront locals to come look at the statues. When they reach one particular backwoods village, a mob of men advance carrying torches, pitchforks, axes, and a vat of tar, determined to destroy the boat and punish the wicked theater folk who have brought sinful playacting to their community. Dr. John is slow to recognize the danger, so much so that our credulity is strained, but it's striking to note that Jonah appreciates the danger instantly-- he knows a lynch mob when he sees one. Dr. John is eventually able to pacify the mob when he invites the men onto his boat and convinces them that the wax figures are "educational," and this impressive word plus the sight of the dummies in their tatty costumes reduces the locals to a state of slack-jawed submission. The punchline comes when Dr. John gives the signal to raise a curtain, revealing a moth-eaten statue of Robert E. Lee astride his horse. At another command, the figure salutes stiffly, and the now-awed rednecks salute in return. To top things off, Jonah, sitting at the calliope, plays "Dixie" and sings along raggedly in a screechy, off-key voice as the scene fades out. It's a startling sequence, bitingly satirical in a way we don't expect, and perhaps not in the way the filmmakers intended. At any rate, this film is well worth a look for viewers who are historically-minded, curious about Will Rogers, or interested in the mass media's presentation of race relations.

P.S. Summer 2006: I'm pleased to add that this film is now available on DVD, in a box-set with three other movies Will Rogers made during the last year of his life.

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10 out of 11 people found the following comment useful :-
"Where d'you want this Virgin Queen?", 12 August 2005
Author: JoeytheBrit from www.moviemoviesite.com

Will Rogers' final film and his third with director John Ford, STEAMBOAT ROUND THE BEND is arguably the best of the trio, although JUDGE PRIEST must run it a close second. In this one, Rogers is the captain of a run-down steamboat whose nephew (John McGuire) is facing the noose-end of a rope after killing a man attempting to rape his 'swamp' girl sweetheart (Anne Shirley). Rogers gives his typical laid-back performance, and acts everyone off the screen in the process. He really was a unique and remarkable talent, way ahead of his time in terms of his naturalistic performances, and must have been a little unnerving to work with for actors trained in more classical methods. Certainly Shirley and McGuire never get a look in when they share the screen with Rogers. Only the rotund figure of character actor Eugene Palette and his unforgettable foghorn voice manage to compete.

The era portrayed (described in the introduction simply as the '90s, as if the producers hadn't considered the possibility that the film would still be being shown in the 21st century) is pure Americana, but without the cloying sentimentality evident in so much of Hollywood's contemporaneous output. It's still an idealised version of America, in which sleepy jailer Palette throws down his keys to on-the-run Duke (McGuire) so that he can lock himself up, but the idealisation is never dwelled upon or forced down the viewer's throat. Anne Shirley, just a year after her breakthrough role in Anne of Green Gables is admirably de-glamourised (if there is such a word) as swamp girl Fleety Belle, who enjoys a confrontational relationship with Rogers' Doctor John Pearly before they eventually thaw toward one another, and Stepin Fetchit plays his usual sleepy-eyed simpleton. His roles were racist stereotypes to be sure, but there is something strangely mesmerising about his performances.

Like the steamboat upon which much of the story takes place, the film moves along at a steady old pace, never creating much of a sense of urgency as Pearly and Belle roam the Mississippi searching for New Moses, the only man who can save Duke from the noose, simply because it isn't trying to. This film isn't concerned with creating a suspenseful storyline so much as providing a showcase for Rogers' low-key charisma to work its charm.

This movie isn't shown on TV that often, so be sure to catch it if you get the chance.

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5 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
Historic, Nostalgic with Tenderness: genuine America, 24 May 2006
10/10
Author: paul arnold from FL, United States

I first saw this movie with my grandfather fifty years ago. Our small-town theater was having classic movie month and Will Rogers was my grandfather's favorite. For a ten-year old boy this movie made a lasting impression of the freedom and romance once available to us in America but now lost forever. Aside from the instantly believable story line about an uncle and his orphaned nephew going together to buy an aging Mississippi River steamboat the pathos applies superbly to this day. The young man meets a girl, gets in a fight over her and is in trouble with the law. The kind uncle moves heaven and earth to help his deceased sister's son. The characters are all period and realistic according to my grandfather who knew people just like that. America was a religious nation in those days, especially the South, so the use of religious terms in common speech is authentic. The thing to watch for in this film is the steamboat race. In 1935 the steamboat's day was already past, and to find that many operating steamboats to make the film must have been a task. Then...listen closely to the melodious whistles. Different pitches and echoes, made by live steam. Steam power built modern America, and the sound of a live steam whistle, once so common, is all but vanished now. I have to yield to my grandfather's opinion of the movie, not having lived in those times myself, and he said it was quite authentic, down to the use of pitch, kerosene or whatever was handy to get more speed out of the engines. The fact that a regular person felt he could go speak to a state governor in person is also part of our American heritage. There was not the class distinction (at least among whites) that there is today. This movie is a priceless treasure, and youngsters definitely need to see it. Anne Shirley, swamp girl, becomes sweet because she admits she is won over by the tenderness of Uncle John.

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2 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :-
"I Ain't Even Seen the Old Moses!", 14 January 2007
8/10
Author: vpadgett (vp09@earthlink.net) from Whittier, California

Steamboat Round the Bend is one of 3 collaborations between director John Ford and actor Will Rogers, and was shot in 6 weeks in the Sacramento River Delta.

The commentary by Scott Eyman, on the 2006 DVD, is worth having apart from the film. Eyman is author of two books on director John Ford: Print the Legend, and John Ford: The Complete Films. His commentary is among the very best I have ever heard.

Standout scenes: An exquisite wedding ceremony brings tears even to Will Rogers's eyes, and he is not acting. Anne Shirley as Fleety Belle is stunning in her delicate beauty throughout. The "New Moses," Berton Churchill, is memorable in his role as a full-of-himself blowhard, as he was playing the prosecuting attorney in the 1934 "Judge Priest," another Ford-Rogers collaboration. Another reprise from Judge Priest is John Ford's brother Francis, again playing a drunk with amazing aim when he spits. A final highlight is supercharging the Claremore Queen firebox with the Pocahontas Remedy.

Some viewers are disturbed by Lincoln Perry's (Stepin Fetchit) character, but more disturbing to me was the lassoing of Moses! Scott Eyman gives a superb analysis of the dull and slow character played by Stepin Fetchit—transcending the kneejerk politically-correct reaction of today, and placing Fetchit's characterization (and that of Hattie McDaniel in other films) in a larger context. He says "might I offer a modest proposal: Is it not now time to look past the stereotypes these actors portrayed-- and look at the art, and the warmth, with which they played them." Two other films with Rogers have the same charm and image of 19th Century American values; one is the Ford– Rogers collaboration Judge Priest, and the other, also released in 1935, is In Old Kentucky.

Commentator Eyman says "taken together, the 3 Ford-Rogers films (Judge Priest, Dr. Boles, and Steamboat) rank with Ford's finest achievements." After Rogers's tragic death, 50,000 people filed by his closed casket, and 12,000 movie theaters went dark for two minutes.

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3 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
Ford's Last Film with Will Rogers is Worth Checking Out, 4 December 2003
Author: Kalaman from Ottawa

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Possible Spoiler.

1935 was a great year for John Ford. He made three successful and well-made pictures: "The Informer", "The Whole Town's Talking" and "Steamboat Round the Bend". Today "The Informer", the film that gave Ford an overwhelming critical acclaim at that time, is badly dated while both "Whole Town's Talking" and "Steamboat Round the Bend" have emerged as two of the director's unjustly neglected and loveliest classics.

Of the two, "Steamboat", Ford's last film with Will Rogers, is the most exciting, a sublime & enjoyable Americana set in the 1890s, written by two of Ford's frequent collaborators, Dudley Nichols and Lamar Trotti, based on the novel by Ben Lucien Burman. Rogers plays Doctor John Pearly who sells a high-proof concoction called "Pocahontas Remedies" along the Mississippi River. He is also the captain of the broken-down riverboat "ClareMore Queen", piloted by his nephew Duke (John McGuire). One day, Duke seeks the help of his uncle when he finds himself in trouble with the law. He has been accused of killing the man who attempted to rape his girl Fleety Belle (Anne Shirley), a swamp-girl who has run off from her family. Duke is sentenced to hang and John exhibits an abandoned wax museum along the river in order to raise the appeal. When the appeal fails, John carries his boat along the river in search of New Moses (Berton Churchill), the only person who allegedly witnessed the scene. John finds his way blocked by a great steamboat race and must enter the race to get down the river. All kinds of crazy things happen as the steamboat, with all its gusto, rushes to save Duke from hanging. And the great supporting players Stepin Fetchit, Francis Ford, Eugene Pallette, and Irving Cobb are all superbly cast in this exhilarating adventure.

There is a memorable near-lynching that anticipates the one in "Young Mr. Lincoln", where John stops a lynch mob and invites them to his wax museum which features figures that range from John the Baptist to Napolean to Old King Abraham.

As critic Andrew Sarris has aptly noted, "If 'Judge Priest' represented Ford in a state of transition in 1934, 'Steamboat' represented Ford in a state of fruition...Ford and Rogers had finally attained a marvelous rapport between their respective styles, thus achieving a mature exuberance virtually unique in the American cinema."

Sadly, Rogers died in a plane crash before the film was released. "Steamboat" remains to my mind, second only to "Judge Priest", their greatest film together.

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5 out of 8 people found the following comment useful :-
This River Runs Deeper Than You'd Expect, 16 November 2004
7/10
Author: LynxMatthews from United States

It's funny to think that when this film was made, it was about a time in the early 1890's, only 35 years earlier than it's production. Now we are looking back almost 75 years at the film itself. I expected a light wacky comedy, but there is definitely a well-rounded plot here revolving around murder in self-defense. Will Rogers gives a very skilled and sympathetic performance, but some of the more hilarious gags in this are gifts from the writers.

The sheriff/preacher's wedding speech goes right up there with Donald Sutherland's in "Little Murders" for sheer comic value.

A great throwaway gag involves the search for the New Moses, when they accidentally run into the New Elijah instead!

Steppin Fetchit, while no great symbol for African Americans, actually plays against his lazy type in this, and his hard work and quick thinking actually save the day on a couple occasions.

A great (and uncommon) saw-playing musical interlude!

To me, the only major weakness was Ms. Shirley as the ingenue. She was quite likable, but did not seem to have lived as hard as her character was supposed to have.

All told, a winner of a film for fans of the 1930's view of the 1890's.

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