The County Fair (1920)
Directed by Maurice Tourneur, Edmund Mortimer

Film Review

As the opening titles to this film point out, The County Fair was a play that had been performed in just about every town and city in America for over twenty years, so by this time it was already an 'old classic' of the stage.  Although written by Charles Barnard, the name most strongly associated with the play was Neil Burgess, the genius impresario who made it a massive hit, thanks in part to his portrayal of the central character, Aunt Abigail (he was one of America's leading female impersonators at the time).  By 1920, The County Fair was unequivocally a nostalgia piece, so it's hardly a surprise that Maurice Tourneur's film adaptation appears quaintly antediluvian even for the era it was made in.  Its main point of interest is that it is one of the few silent comedies directed by Tourneur which survive virtually intact to this day - most of his early work has long perished and what remains are his more ambitious, more modern-looking and more sober productions.

The bucolic setting of The County Fair doubtless appealed to Tourneur far more than its homespun, almost infantile story.  More a pictorialist than a conventional director, Tourneur's chief talent was in composing stark and often beautiful images to convey the mood and feelings that underpin the subject of his film.  In The County Fair, he and his cinematographer René Guissart conjure up a sun-drenched rural locale that is so tangible and enticing that it effortlessly draws you into it.  So vivid are the impressions of the titular County Fair that having watched the film you almost felt you were there, gorging on peanuts and pink lemonade and watching hoards of children chasing frantically after a greased pig.

In every other respect, the film is a pretty humdrum affair, and there's none of the anarchic fun that we find in Tourneur's later French comedies, Les Gaietés de l'escadron (1932) and Lidoire (1933).  The characters are pretty bland archetypes whose names are just about the most interesting thing about them.  Solon Hammerhead is a name to savour, but William V. Mong's two-dimensional portrayal prevents him from being the juicy villain the film requires to bring it to life.  Helen Jerome and David Butler likewise make next to no impression as the amorous juveniles, so Edythe Chapman and John Steppling, two likeable eccentrics, have an easy job stealing the film as the kindly Aunt Abigail and her secret admirer.

The County Fair is by no means the most distinguished or entertaining of Maurice Tourneur's early films, but it has its charms and it leaves you with a longing for a simpler age when the pace of life was slower and out-and-out cads were more instantly recognisable (by the fact they have toothbrush moustaches and are named after threatening items of ironmongery).  And it's hard to dislike a silent film with inter-titles that look like a collaboration between Mark Twain and P.G. Wodehouse, witness: 'the Hammerheads seek to destroy Cold Molasses...' and 'the greatest aggregation of living freaks ever gathered together'.

Film Synopsis

Sally Greenway and her aged aunt Abigail live a dull but contented life in the sleepy hamlet of Somerset, Massachusetts.  Threatened with eviction from their ample farm by the cold-hearted money lender Solon Hammerhead, Sally has no option but to consent to marry Hammerhead's equally odious son, Bruce.  What makes this so particularly painful is that Sally is already in love - with the handsome farmhand Joel.  One night, a stranger breaks into the Greenways' homestead looking for food.  The intruder turns out to be Tim Vail, a former jockey fallen on hard times.  Aunt Abigail takes pity on Tim and gives him a job on her farm.  Tim soon realises that his employers' horse, Cold Molasses, has racing potential and persuades Abigail to enter him in the horse race at the County Fair.  If the horse wins, Aunt Abigail stands to win three thousand pounds - enough to pay off her mortgage and allow Sally to marry the man of her choice.  Unfortunately, the Hammerheads also have a horse running in the race, and they have no intention of losing...