MusicChat It's complicated... I really like the directing, acting and writing but, there are issues with the way it's shot that I just can't deny. As much as I love the storytelling and the fantastic performance but, there are also certain scenes that didn't need to exist.

ThrillMessage There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

SanEat A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

Rosie Searle It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

gkeith_1 Our Ohio State Fair is a great state fair. During the gloomy winter months (like now), I can picture our own state fair beginning next July (only 7 months away!) and think of this movie at the same time. I like this movie better than the 1962 version, because I feel that this 1945 version is warmer, homier and more nostalgic than the later version. Blue Boy is the star. He is a main reason for going. So is mother's canned pickle. The drunk judge is hilarious. Winninger and Bainter fabulous. "Grand Night for Singing". In my childhood, there were the Silver Airplanes (I called them that) in an amusement park. I think they were really early spaceship models. I love this song. Fifteen seconds of Dana Andrews and Jeanne Crain (dubbing?) singing this song in those silver airplanes have forever melted in my memory ever since I first saw them in this movie. The other characters sing verses of this song, but IMO Dana's and Jeanne's part is way more memorable. I like the singing hayseed red-bearded Ioway men. This is also a memorable scene, and to this day I still find it snappy and memorable -- also not too hokey (or hokey-pokey, as S.Z. Sakall would say). Coloration still excellent. Costumes and hair colors show up very well. Movie a little draggy in places, however. I still give it high marks. 9/10.

vincentlynch-moonoi As a number of people have pointed, this is not one of the GREAT Rodgers & Hammerstein...and it was originally produced for the film, as opposed to their other musicals that were first produced for Broadway and then later moved to the big screen. But while not great, it's darned good in an old-fashioned sort of way.The story revolves around a rural family who is getting ready to go to the State Fair. Mother will put her mincemeat and dill pickles up for judging. Father his prize hog. The son will go looking for a new love, and the daughter for her first real love. One will find what they are looking for, another will settle for the love back home.Jeanne Crain was almost always a delight on the big screen, and is no less so here. Will she find her first real love? Incidentally, Crain's singing performance here is dubbed, and in my view, by a not very good singer. Dana Andrews is decent as the sophisticated reporter she sets her sights on. Dick Haymes plays the brother, and he displays his very nice singing voice. Vivian Blaine is who he falls in love with. I like Blaine, but here her red hair just didn't look real. Charles Winninger is adorable as the father. Fay Bainter wonderful as the mother...although she certainly had better roles. Donald Meek plays the tipsy mincemeat judge. Frank McHugh has a crucial role with little screen time. Percy Kilbride plays a character not unlike most that he played in his career. Harry Morgan has a brief role as a carnival barker.In terms of songs, "Our State Fair" is catchy, as is "Isn't It Kind of Fun?". But the two standouts are "It Might as Well Be Spring" and "It's A Grand Night For Singing".It's all very pleasant, though not spectacular. Certainly worth a watch, and the DVD set I have also has the later remake with Ann-Margaret and Pat Boone (which is less successful, although I love the song "Sweet Hog Of Mine" with Tom Ewell). If you like musicals, it's worth watching.

bkoganbing I've no doubt that on the strength of the blockbuster hit that Richard Rodgers&Oscar Hammerstein had with Oklahoma which was still running on Broadway as this film was being made, that Darryl F. Zanuck offered the team the chance to contribute the songs for a remake of State Fair. Oklahoma in fact was a rural setting and so was Iowa for this second telling of the adventures of the Frake family at the Iowa State Fair.What today's audiences don't appreciate was that in 1946 the Iowa state centennial was being celebrated. Some bright individual at 20th Century Fox must have realized that and a nice musical technicolor remake of the Will Rogers classic State Fair would be a can't miss at the box office. Providing of course Mr. Zanuck could assemble the talent.Though the 1933 cast boasted people like Louise Dresser, Lew Ayres, and Janet Gaynor in support of Will Rogers, the accent there was very much on Rogers as it was HIS picture. Here the accent is on the younger generation. Charles Winninger and Fay Bainter play the older Frakes taking their prize hog, Bainter's mince pie, and children Dick Haymes and Jeanne Crain to the Iowa State Fair. Haymes and Crain, together with Dana Andrews and Vivian Blaine as the respective romantic partners carry the film here.Rodgers and Hammerstein had a lot on their plate back in the day. Besides Oklahoma, Hammerstein was involved in creating a musical version of Bizet's Carmen which became Carmen Jones as we all know. He and Rodgers had another musical open in 1945 that was Carousel and became another American classic. When 20th Century Fox signed them for State Fair, according to a recent biography of Dick Rodgers, they never went west. Rodgers did his music from his estate in Connecticut and Hammerstein wrote the lyrics from his Doylestown, Pennsylvania farm. I guess they met in New York and express mailed the songs to Zanuck in Hollywood.They put together a real nice score, one song It Might As Well Be Spring won the Oscar for Best Original Song from a film. The rest of the score ain't too shabby either with Isn't It Kind of Fun and That's For Me also sung beautifully. My favorite however is It's a Grand Night for Singing, a song so absolutely infectious you will be singing it yourself for days after watching State Fair.Andrews and Crain were dubbed by other singers, but Dick Haymes and Vivian Blaine were seasoned musical performers. Haymes recorded all four of the songs above in an album for Decca that sold very well. Haymes had a smooth, but strong baritone and if scandal hadn't blown his career up a few years later, who knows to what heights he might have risen.Every version of State Fair has something to recommend it. There was even a pilot done in the middle Seventies for a television series based on the time honored Frake family saga. For me however this one cops the prize.

sean-893 I'd give this a 7/10 without the 2005 DVD extras. The extras compared the 1933, 1945, and the 1962 movie to the book, why and how the songs came to be made, the background of the actors, and so on. I appreciated the movie on a different level after watching the extras! (This is why DVDs are better than the big screen.)The story and the movie itself are straightforward: boy and girl (and parents and pig) go to fair; boy meets girl, girl meets boy, pig meets pig, and parents re-meet each other. Boy loses girl, girl loses boy, pig loses pig, and parents work hard. Boy . . . well, I won't spoil it, but all comes out pretty well in the end.Good music (but not Oscar material), acceptable acting, and a beautifully put together DVD. Well worth investigating.