Ensofter Overrated and overhyped

Pacionsbo Absolutely Fantastic

Invaderbank The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

kidboots Henry Fonda was imported from the original Broadway cast (104 performances) to make his screen debut opposite winsome Janet Gaynor and learned an important lesson in screen technique. Director Victor Fleming pointed out after the first day that Fonda was mugging - the ultimate insult that can be made to an actor. But, of course, as a stage actor he was playing to the back row and he was always grateful to Fleming for setting him straight. Henry is pretty near perfect as the shy, softly spoken young man who is quite determined that feisty Molly Larkin (Gaynor) will become his wife but just as determined to become a farmer. When he tries to explain to Molly that the earth means life, his sincerity makes you believe in him and when he becomes exasperated at her love of the Erie Canal, he says "I never spoke so much in my life" - the audience must have laughed.Walter D. Edmond's rustic comedy drama (based on his book "Rome Haul") about life along the Erie Canal fitted Henry Fonda's talents like a comfy slipper. He did two more Edmonds based movies, "Drums Along the Mohawk" and the enchanting, under rated "Chad Hanna". The Erie Canal was an important waterway that officially opened in 1825 but the film is set during a tenuous time in the late 1840s when the canal was threatened by the encroaching railway. The film also incorporated a few folk songs as well.The time frame is established by the only chilling scene in this folksy movie. A visiting actor's son spends a day aboard a canal boat and overhears a couple of old timers talking about up and coming senator Abraham Lincoln - how people are going to hear of him etc. He pipes up and claims he has never heard of him (Lincoln) but everyone is going to hear of him someday - of course he is John Wilkes Booth!!!Apart from Fonda and Gaynor, the film's biggest drawcard is it's homespun characters who populate the water front where the most popular entertainment are the fights that frequently occur between rival boat owners. A man is measured by how eagerly he wants to engage in a brawl, so when Dan Harrow (Fonda) leaves the river on business just at the moment fighting Jotham Klore (fantastic Charles Bickford) is looking for him, Molly is left shamed and snubbed by the townsfolk. Bickford attacked every role he was given with gusto and this part was no exception. His Klore is always the centre of attention whether walking alone drunk, in the centre of a crowd or commanding Molly to fix him some food (she was originally his cook). The anticipated brawl between Dan and Klore is over all too quickly but from what you see, Dan seems to be on the receiving end of some ferocious punches.As well as Bickford, there is Slim Summerville as Fortune Friendly, a newly qualified dentist badly in need of some patients, Andy Devine as a "hog carrier", Jane Withers as Della, a pesky little girl always in the front row whenever a fight is announced and Kitty Kelly as Fortune's first unfortunate patient. Also Margaret Hamilton as a no nonsense towns woman who is Molly's good friend and last but not least that beautiful "starry" dapple grey horse (it looked like the horses coat was covered with stars).Janet Gaynor had finally found her niche after years of being a sweet young thing in films such as "Delicious", "Adorable" and worse. She had always fought for roles with more depth and after "State Fair" (a film she was reluctant to do) she got her wish. Her peppery Molly Larkin was just the perfect contrast to Fonda's bashful Dan Harrow - she would pace up and down as word went around "Molly's got her dander up". But after "A Star is Born" she didn't take any more chances and retired at the top.

F Gwynplaine MacIntyre "The Farmer Takes a Wife" is remembered as Henry Fonda's film debut. He had previously starred in this story as a Broadway play. Reportedly, when Fonda met this film's director (Victor Fleming) for the first time during pre-production, Fonda asked Fleming why so many scenes featured a woman named Dolly who never said anything. Fonda then showed Fleming a line in the shooting script: "Dan and Molly cross the field. Dolly with them." He didn't know that this refers to a camera's dolly shot!The film and play are based on a novel by Walter D Edmonds, who specialised in novels about the early history of the United States. Here, we're on the Erie Canal in 1853. For nearly 30 years, the river people have prospered from the canal, which enabled easy transport between New York City and the Great Lakes. But now the railroads are coming, and the river barges may become obsolete...This film splendidly conveys that transitional moment in history, with only a few historic errors (Amerindians in New York State didn't wear Sioux war bonnets) and a few awkward examples of phony prole dialogue: I doubt that anyone ever actually referred to Utica as "Yoot-ickey".Fonda and Janet Gaynor give excellent performances, with splendid chemistry between them. Slim Summerville gives an astonishingly nuanced performance, and even perennial scene-chewers Charles Bickford and Jane Withers are good here.Margaret Hamilton, who was in the Broadway play with Fonda, repeats her stage role here: for once, she portrays a sympathetic character. I never thought I'd describe Hamilton as "pretty", but in this movie -- wearing a frilly gingham frock and an elaborate hairstyle -- she seems almost attractive for once.SLIGHT SPOILERS. There's one wince-worthy scene in this film (it wasn't in the novel or the play) when the bargees meet touring actor Junius Brutus Booth and his 15-year-old son John Wilkes Booth. The boy reads a newspaper article about a rising politician named Abraham Lincoln, and vows to become just as famous one day. Here's the truth: although Junius Booth toured with his elder son Edwin, younger son John Wilkes was kept home in Virginia ... and this is one reason why, in adulthood, the embittered John Wilkes Booth was inspired to commit the assassination that would make him more famous than his brother and their father.I also cringed at a scene when Andy Devine calls out to Janet Gaynor and she asks who's there. (Their characters have already met.) Devine had one of the most distinctive (and most annoying) voices in Hollywood, so Gaynor shouldn't have to ask him to identify himself.My all-time favourite character actress, Eily Malyon, is seen here in a very brief role ... and she actually sings, for perhaps the only time in her long acting career.There are many delights in this movie; I only regret that this is one more film in which a man must prove his manhood by getting into a brawl. I'll rate 'The Farmer Takes a Wife' 9 out of 10.

bkoganbing When The Farmer Takes A Wife completed its run of 104 performances on Broadway in 1934 it was readily seen as a tailor made property for the number one star on the Fox Film's lot, Janet Gaynor. She specialized in playing sweet and rustic rural girls both on the silent and talking film.But when Winfield Sheehan could not get either Gary Cooper or Joel McCrea to play the male lead, he took the unusual step of hiring the actor who originated the part on Broadway. And that boys and girls is how Henry Fonda became a motion picture star.Even with Gaynor getting first billing, the accent here is on Fonda's character, a farm kid who's working on the Erie Canal in its last days because the railroad is coming through. Fonda just wants to earn enough money for good piece of farm land, not unlike Gary Cooper's Sergeant York character before he went to war. He's not into the Canal and what it's meant to the history and economy of upstate New York, in fact the whole Northeast of the USA.Gaynor and most of the rest of the cast depend on the canal for a living and they don't like progress. But she does like Fonda, prefers him in fact to another Erie Canal boat pilot, Charles Bickford who plays a real lout. You know he and Fonda will tangle.The Farmer Takes A Wife made Fonda both a stage and screen star, unusual for one work to accomplish both. But on the screen it also type cast Fonda into playing rustics for years. Think about all the roles he had in his early days. His next film was a sound remake of Way Down East, after that he did The Trail Of The Lonesome Pine, Slim, Chad Hanna which was based on a novel by Walter Edmonds just as The Farmer Takes A Wife was. Even his acclaimed parts for John Ford in The Grapes Of Wrath, Drums Along The Mohawk, and Young Mr. Lincoln fall in this same vein. After almost 80 years, The Farmer Takes A Wife still holds up well as a drama. This is a quintessential Janet Gaynor film and if a young viewer didn't know Henry Fonda became a major star because of this film, they'd guess it right away.

Single-Black-Male The 30 year old Henry Fonda made his screen debut in this film where he delivers a fairly mediocre performance. His voice is always the same and he's still as stiff and one dimensional as he went on to become as an old man on the screen, but there is activity in his face which redeems him as a screen actor.