Thrice Told Tales: State Fair

When I was growing up, two weeks in August was the only time that could rival the two weeks off school at Christmas. In Sonoma County, California, our fair was held the first two weeks of August. Our family was involved in 4-H, which meant long days at the fair. My brother raised pigs, and I entered rabbits. We both entered woodworking projects (though his, unlike mine, were actually good).

I also remember field trips with the summer swim team. On those trips, the emphasis was on rides. (Riding the Rotor caused me to lose my affection for 7-11 Slurpees, along with the Slurpee. You know the Rotor. It’s the one where the room spins and you’re stuck on the wall.)

Like most fairs back in the day, there were things that we looked forward to every year. Yes, the rides and games on the midway. And the animal exhibits and the arts and crafts exhibits. And the exhibition hall where we saw the latest in all that was “Seen on TV” (such as fancy mops and reclining chairs and juicers). My parents always came home with a new gadget.

And, of course, there was the food. So many fried and sugared things. What’s a better meal than a corn dog, a funnel cake, and a candy apple?

The Sonoma County Fair had two things that set it apart from other fairs. They had a top-tier garden show with a creative theme and, usually, cool special effects in the exhibits. And there was the race track. People came from all over the state for the horse racing.

Even when I was in college, the fair was a big deal. I worked at the movie theater, and we knew to expect a big slump come fair time. Everyone went to the county fair.

During those years, the same was true of fairs across the country. Sometimes it was the county fair and sometimes it was the state fair. It was the place to be, wherever that place was.

But things have changed. Most fairs aren’t drawing like they used to. Even the Minnesota State Fair is no longer what it used to be when James Lileks used to man the Star Tribune booth.

In 1932, author Phil Stong’s novel State Fair came out to critical raves (it was a Literary Guild Selection) and big sales. One place it didn’t sell was in Phil Strong’s hometown of Keosauqua, Iowa, where the local library banned the book for the next 25 years for “immorality.” The story focuses on a family – father, mother, son, and daughter – who spend almost a week at the Iowa State Fair. The son and daughter both find romance (the kind of romance that got them banned from Iowa libraries).

Its popularity was understandable. Stong wrote about a tradition that was central to the experience of most of the nation. Hollywood noticed, and a film version came out the next year, 1933.

State Fair (1933)

This version’s biggest star, Will Rogers (“Oklahoma’s Favorite Son”), was cast in the role of the father. By the early 1930s, Rogers had made his mark on the vaudeville stage, had starred in dozens of films (silent and talkies), and had a nationally syndicated column in 4,000 newspapers. (He is now best remembered for two quotes: “I never met a man I didn’t like,” and “I’m not a member of any organized political party. I’m a Democrat.”)

Rogers plays Abel Frake, the patriarch of the family who has high hopes that his pig, Blue Boy, can take Best in Show at the state fair. (In the novel, the reader is occasionally given Blue Boy’s perspective on things.) Before leaving for the fair, he makes a $5 bet with a friend that it will be a wonderful week, and nothing will go wrong for anyone in the family.

Louise Dresser plays Mama, Melissa Frake. She's competing in the mincemeat and pickle competitions. Her husband argues that to be competitive, she needs to add brandy to the mincemeat. Ma is shocked and offended by the mere suggestion of such a thing, but when her husband isn’t around, she adds a few glugs of apple brandy – not knowing that her husband had added some while she was out of the kitchen. Two things of interest: the book didn’t have the alcohol plot point, except in a brief reference to an earlier fair, though it’s included in all three film versions of the story, and this film came out before Prohibition had ended (the film debuted February 10th of 1933, Prohibition ended December 5th of the same year).

The daughter, Margy, is played by Janet Gaynor in a studio bid to promote her to stardom. The son, Wayne, is played by Norman Foster, an actor no one seemed to envision as a big star though he went on for decades of middling success as an actor and a director.

Margy and Wayne are both given very good “meet cutes” that come directly from the novel. Margy hopes to ride the roller coaster with her brother, but when he ditches her, the ride operator puts her in the coaster car with a stranger. She’s frightened during the ride and discovers she’s turned to the stranger for safety. That stranger is a newspaper reporter, Pat Gilbert (played by Lew Ayers), who thinks he might get more than just a story if he gets to know Margy.

At the previous year’s state fair, Wayne had been cheated by the proprietor of the ring toss. He has spent the year practicing every day so he would be ready to win - and ready he is. At the booth where he was cheated the year before, he wins toss after toss while showing the admiring crowd that the prizes he wins are worthless shams. The carny accuses him of cheating and says he’ll call the police. Wayne is ready to back out, but a young woman in the crowd comes to his aid, claiming to be the daughter of the chief of police. The girl, Emily (Sally Eiler), agrees to meet Wayne that night in the midway. When he gets to the rendezvous, he’s surprised to discover that she’s a performer in a high wire act – not at all the daughter of the police chief.

All goes very well with Abel and Melissa. Blue Boy takes best in show, as does Melissa’s mincemeat.

Margy pursues a romance with Pat, but is he too much a man of the world for this country girl? And is Emily too much of a woman of the world for Wayne? The film was made before the Hays Code, which is evident in Wayne’s relationship with Emily. It’s quite clear they spend the night together (though he tells his parents he spent the night with “the boys,” much as in the novel). Margy and Pat’s relationship is probably chaste, but it isn’t clear. In the end, Wayne and Emily have just a short fair fling, but Margy and Pat might carry on.

Though the Frakes won all the prizes at the fair, the film didn’t win all the prizes at the Oscars. The film was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Picture, but it lost Adapted Screenplay to Little Women and lost Best Picture to Cavalcade.

State Fair (1945)

If people know of State Fair these days, they are most likely to know of it as a musical, but it wasn’t one until Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein made it so. One of America’s greatest songwriting teams, R & H made this their only score written originally for the screen rather than the stage. (They did also take on one project for television, Cinderella.)

It certainly made sense for them to take this on as a project; the subject is as ripe with Americana as any project since Oklahoma. The one obstacle was that the team did not want to go to California to work on the project, so they were told they didn’t have to. They could stay on the East Coast.

The musical, for the most part, follows the plot of the novel and the previous film with a few interesting changes. The story still takes place over a week at the Iowa State Fair. The father (Charles Winninger) and mother (Fay Bainter) still enter and win their pig and mincemeat competitions successfully. The young couples meet in the very same ways.

But the farm boy, Wayne, is played by Dick Haymes, a singer who never really comes across as a farm boy. His love interest, Emily (Vivian Blaine, Miss Adelaide of 1955’s Guys and Dolls), is a singer this time around rather than an acrobat. And their relationship remains chaste throughout (differing from the novel and the first film). We learn that Emily is married but separated from her husband, and that is why she won’t pursue a relationship with Wayne.

Margy is played by Jeanne Crain, and her newspaperman love interest, Pat, is played by Dana Andrews. Their relationship also remains chaste, but at the end they are going to be together. Andrews was probably the biggest name in the film, having appeared in such hits as Laura and The Ox-Bow Incident (and the next year he would appear in one of the great films, The Best Years of Our Lives). The studio assumed Andrews couldn’t sing, so they hired someone to dub his songs. In fact, Andrews had sought work as an opera singer before he became an actor, but he didn’t want to put the voice-over singer out of work, so he didn’t raise the issue.

I find this the most enjoyable version of the story, chiefly because of the score, introducing the standards “All I Owe Ioway” and “It’s a Grand Night for Singing.” And how can you top the lyrics of the title track? “Our state fair is a great state fair, it’s the best state fair in our state.”

This version of the story was nominated for multiple Oscars and won for Best Song (“It Might As Well Be Spring”).

State Fair (1962)

This film is a great example of how a solid format can be ruined with a few basic changes. Its greatest sin is trying to update something that was charming because it was old-fashioned. (Are you listening, Cracker Barrel?)

Directed by Jose Ferrer, the first big blunder is changing the location of the state fair from Iowa to Texas. Nothing against the Lone Star State, and the travelogue shots of the fairgrounds are rather fun, but Iowa represents the Midwest and a simplicity that makes viewers believe that the state fair is the best thing that happens in the state all year. It’s very hard to believe that about Texas.

The film also modernizes the story. Margy’s love interest isn’t a newspaper reporter but a TV personality (more about him, sadly, in a bit). And Wayne’s great interest is race cars, and one of the last scenes in the film is the big race. Yes, car races and even demolition derbies were part of fairs when I was growing up, but they don’t have the same nostalgic but universal appeal as the animal stalls and the midway.

There are two great pieces of casting in the film that almost, but don't quite, save it. Pat Boone plays Wayne, and it’s easy to believe he’s a guy raised on the farm. His character is quite appealing. Best of all is Ann-Margaret as Emily, the woman he meets at the fair. But they meet in a different way that’s a huge downgrade in the “meet cute” category. Wayne is one of the winners in the time trials, and Emily is a model at the track for photo-ops. Wayne finds her attractive (duh) and chases her down after the photos. Meeting at the ring toss had more of a sense of serendipity and fate – and felt like something that could happen at the fair.

Even worse is the change to Margy and Pat’s meeting. It’s not cute at all.

Pat, played by Bobby Darin, is a TV personality covering the fair. He is hosting a trivia competition and spots Margy in the crowd. He calls her forward, obviously just as an opportunity for a pick-up. He’s much older than Margy and just comes across as creepy in his pursuit of her. He takes her to a bar and tries to buy her a drink, but discovers she isn’t old enough to drink.

It also doesn’t help that the actress playing Margy is, sorry to say, rather dull. Pamela Tiffin comes across as a member of the chorus in a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical rather than the lead.

This film was made after Oscar Hammerstein’s death, and several additional songs were written by Rodgers alone. “The Little Things in Texas” is fine and understandable for the change of locale (though the performance of the song on a carousel is rather silly, with Tom Ewell as the father surrounded by the most bored-looking child actors I’ve ever seen).

Another added song is horrendous, and it’s sung by one of the most odious musical characters I have ever encountered. (And understand, I played Jud Fry in our high school production of Oklahoma and Nazi Herr Zeller in a community theater production of The Sound of Music.)

The mother in the film, played by Alice Faye, instructs her daughter on romantic behavior with the song, “Never Say No to a Man.” The song teaches that deception is superior to honesty and that a woman must never dissuade a man, because she never knows if he might just turn out to be the best she can get.

And that isn’t the worst thing the mother does in the film. She hasn’t met Wayne’s new girlfriend, Emily, but at the car race she rants to her husband and daughter about what a tramp she probably is. “She might not even realize she’s the kind of girl she is.” The mother doesn’t know that Emily is standing directly behind her and hears every word. And this version of Emily, though not particularly innocent, really cares about Wayne and was waiting for an opportunity to meet and get to know them. Melissa’s attitude and words ruin that. It’s unforgivable.

I’d advise skipping this version of the story, but I certainly recommend the first two for capturing a certain moment of America’s past.