Perfectly adorable

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

Farm family Frake, with discontented daughter Margy, head for the Iowa State Fair. On the first day, both Margy and brother Wayne meet attractive new flames; so does father's prize hog, Blue Boy.I really liked this film from the opening shots. The first song is great, and includes the phrase "dollars to doughnuts", which I always thought was a strange one. Now I know where it comes from. After that, it sort of goes downhill. Most of the songs are rather dated, and the overall romance stories are cheesy. Granted, this is supposed to be a stage musical, so it has to be rushed a little... but it seems off.I really liked the pig, though. More pig and more catchy tunes and this would be a definite winner.

If you've read my reviews of musicals, then you know that I watch most of them only so that I can heckle them like Mike, Servo and Crow do to the crummy movies that Dr. Forrester and TV's Frank send them on "Mystery Science Theater 3000". One of my cracks to the arch-hokey "State Fair" was during the taste-testing scene: I said that one of the characters had put LSD in the punch. I heckled the equally hokey 1962 version to a lesser extent, just since I'm not tempted to heckle Ann-Margret.Yes, you probably think that I'm some sort of curmudgeon. Look, these big pompous movies set themselves up to get mocked. If we can make fun of famous people, then why not the movies in which they star? And no, you can't give me any of this "Golden Age of Cinema" mumbo-jumbo; there were just as many bad movies back then as there are now. It's just that we only remember the good movies. The point is that this is just the sort of movie that begs to get given a "Weird Al" Yankovic-style treatment. And just to remind you that I'm not playing favorites, I did the same with "My Dream Is Yours", "Show Boat", "Oklahoma!", "The King and I", "Mary Poppins" and "The Sound of Music". "MST3K" would have a field day with all these flicks. As for me, I'd like to see Quentin Tarantino remake them.

It is some testament to the growing stature of the movie musical in the 1940s that Rodgers and Hammerstein, then revitalising the stage musical in a way not seen since the death of Ziegfeld, decided to turn their hands to a piece for the screen. State Fair had been a popular non-musical movie back in 1933, a simple yet touching love story that Rodgers and Hammerstein could adapt with very few changes in what looked like a simple case of "add songs, create hit".Individually both members of the duo had worked in film before, so the format was not unfamiliar, and they are prepared to make concessions to it. Of all the Rodgers and Hammerstein pictures produced by Fox State Fair is the shortest by a considerable margin. The epic musical that would appear in the mid-50s (boosted primarily by the adaptations of Rodgers and Hammerstein's big stage works) was still an unknown concept. Nevertheless, they seem keen to make the most of the cinema's possibilities. At one point, a snatch of singing becomes an internal monologue, something that doesn't really work on stage (although having said that it never really caught on in the movies either). Apart from this, all the usual Rodgers and Hammerstein touches are there, with songs that move the story along emotionally and tonally rather than semantically. "It Might as Well Be Spring" is integrated into the background scoring and becomes an illustration of Jeanne Crain's confused dissatisfaction.This is also one of the earliest musicals in which non-singing actors would be dubbed by professional vocalists. In later years this would be done a lot because the studio wanted the right performer for each role more than they wanted someone who could sing. Strangely though there is nothing special about Jeanne Crain or Dana Andrews, both of whom were dubbed here. The best player is surely Fay Bainter, the archetypal mother figure in numerous 40s movies. She is full of endearing, twitchy mannerisms, as in her hesitation over adding more liquor to the mincemeat. There's also a nice little supporting part from sweet old man Donald Meek as one of the judges.State Fair is undoubtedly a nice-looking picture. At this point Technicolor was still quite a special thing, but it was beginning to become standard for musicals. The colours here are rich and vibrant without being garish, the screen filled with subtle pinks, blues and natural greens. Director Walter Lang handles the scenes with poise and delicacy. His staging of "It Might as Well Be Spring" is simple yet beautiful, slowly closing the camera in on Jeanne Crain as the shadow of the trees teases across the image. His arranging of the crowds is excellent too, often keeping people moving rhythmically but realistically, and forming careful patterns to draw our attention to the stars in the foreground.Good as it looks and sounds, State Fair is ultimately a rather flat experience. Apart from the fact that this version has songs, its 1933 counterpart was better in almost every aspect. The earlier movie was certainly far more intensely romantic. Even the songs in State Fair are far from Rodgers and Hammerstein's best, the delicate charm of "It Might as Well Be Spring" being the only example up to their usual standard. The movie's one real asset can be summed up in Craine's sudden anger that the ultra-modern farmhouse proposed by her bespectacled suitor would have "nothing useless". In other words, she yearns for the purely decorative things in life. State Fair, with its fragile beauty and quaint frippery wrapped around a rather mundane slice of Americana, is a purely decorative movie.

Due to the ongoing success of Rodgers & Hammerstein's "Oklahoma!" on Broadway, a film version of that musical couldn't yet be produced (the makers not wanting to rob themselves of potential ticket income that was still flowing briskly.) So R & H were commissioned to musicalize "State Fair" which began as a novel and then was a highly successful straight dramatic film in 1932. The result is a candy box of a musical; a bright, pleasant, cheerful, tuneful tale that exists in its own featherweight atmosphere. It's not for the cynical, but for audiences who just want an hour and a half or so of escapism, it's practically perfect. The film revolves around the Frake family and the upcoming title event at which each family member has a stake. Father Winninger has his hopes pinned on his prize hog Blue Boy, mother Bainter is entering the pickles and mincemeat competitions, son Haymes is gearing up to win back some of the loot he lost to a carnival barker the year before and daughter Crain is just hoping that something, anything, will take her by storm. At the fair, they take turns tackling their respective tasks with Haymes chasing glamorous girl singer Blaine and Crain meeting up with ace reporter Andrews. These couples enjoy whirlwind romances that are in serious danger of deflating by the time the tents are pulled down and the litter is swept away for good. The entire film is bathed in careful lighting and vivid color. Not a moment of it seems particularly true to life, but in war time, it was just what audiences needed. Some audiences are still quite receptive to its charms. Winninger and Bainter present a delightful, loving, but gently bantering, couple. Crain has one of her finest showcases. She isn't the one singing, but most people would have trouble guessing it, so exceptional is the marriage of actress and voice double. All of her outfits lean towards the preposterous, but it only adds to the overriding delicate beauty of the movie. Haymes is too mature and sophisticated for his character (and seems to favor one facial expression above all others: that of someone who just walked by the elephant house at the zoo!), but his singing is warm and wonderful. Blaine sings nicely and gets to wear some lovely evening gowns. Andrews is given fairly little to do, but he and Crain share a nice chemistry together. Some of the vignettes and gags have, by now, become classics (as they were in the original film as well) such as the mincemeat recipe and Blue Boy's affection for a fellow pig. However, the stunning color photography and the addition of a few really pretty songs have elevated this version of the story to the highest rung. This was (rather crudely) remade in 1962 and eventually made it's way to Broadway in the 1990's. The new 2-disc DVD set is exceptional and only disappoints in two ways. One oversight is the failure to include the deleted scene of Haymes reprising one of his songs while showering. It was shown on a special "Rodgers and Hammerstein: The Sound of Their Music", but, sadly, is left out here which is a shame since so many other things are featured. Additionally, in what has become a horrible trend for classic films on DVD, the commentary is handled by two "experts" who frequently overlook key aspects of the material or else have no idea what they are talking about. One extended sequence has them going on and on about the color balancing demands of Technicolor which must have required a group of men to all have to wear similarly colored jackets when anyone with a set of eyes can see that the jackets were the BAND'S UNIFORMS. Still, the presentation of the film is exquisite and its delights are not tarnished to any degree.