Rediscovering Will Rogers
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Narrator: Edwin Newman.
His birth in Indian territory and Cherokee background are covered with stills and comments by historians and cultural specialists, and his intro to showbiz in South Africa when he joined a circus at the turn of the century is duly recorded. His musical-comedy appearances began in 1912, and by 1917 he was starring in the Ziegfeld Follies. Docu includes sublime footage of Rogers controlling his lariat with balletic precision and grace.
Docu passes gently over his first film career. He starred in silent features and shorts on the strength of his popularity, but because his voice was essential to his unique talents, he lost dough producing and directing these pix. With the advent of sound, he was a smash, and eventually was the highest-paid star in Hollywood.
Rogers' sympathy with the common man and with the poor was his source of strength, as the docu points out. His definition of a gentleman:"A man who has great consideration for somebody else's feelings."
A popular guest speaker around the country, he had little patience -- maybe some tolerance, but little patience -- with the power figures of the world. Herbert Hoover asked him to speak with him on a radio broadcast about the Depression, an unwise invitation. Said Rogers, "It wasn't the working class that brought this condition at all; it was the big boys themselves."
He kidded Calvin Coolidge, he philosophized wittily and wisely on what was in the newspapers. His national popularity was such that his stumping for FDR in 1932 was of tremendous help. A clip in which he teases Roosevelt at a 1931 campaign appearance at the Los Angeles Coliseum is a gem.
Though there's footage about his three youngsters, and Jim Rogers recalls his father, little is said about what became of them. (Will Rogers Jr., who died in 1983, played his father in two film bios.) Program looks at the Sunset Boulevard ranch and shows clips of celebs playing polo there. And there are home movies, plus a filmlet about the family that Rogers himself started and abandoned.
But what made Will Rogers so incredibly important in Americans' lives isn't revealed. It probably can't be, because Rogers went part and parcel with his era. He defined the office workers and farmers by recognizing and standing up for them. It was another time, and Rogers stood out from it like a beacon.
Camera, Reuben Aaronson, Art Adams, Beau Anello, Jeri Sopanen; editor, Daisy Wright; sound, Andy Green; series theme music, Thomas Wagner. 60 MIN.
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