Plantiana Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

Ella-May O'Brien Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Hattie I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

SimonJack Will Rogers spread his humor across America during the height of the Great Depression. Rogers was a comedian, storyteller, actor, poet, writer and all around performer from Oklahoma. He traveled across the country, appeared on stage and performed on the radio. Rogers's homespun common sense humor registered with folks everywhere. One sees that in full flower in "Judge Priest." Rogers stars as a small town Southern judge named Priest, who presides over local justice. John Ford directed the film. The plot is very light, and the film gives a look at the culture of the time and place. In modern times, some might cry, "stereotyping" for potdrayal of the African-Americans. "Judge Priest" has some light humor with a look at the lingering affections of loyalty in the Confederacy well after the Civil War. But, the film doesn't have great comedy and otherwise is quite light.

Andres-Camara I am a great lover of old cinema, but this movie is that I see it too theatrical. From the actors to the staging. We all know how it will end from the beginning. It has a too slow pace which makes it harder to carry. It lasts only eighty minutes and yet it has become long. For some time it is stuck and stops moving. If it is true that John Ford is noticed when there are many actors, all placed and studied so they do not bother. The staging is very much his own and the general plans too, Orson Welles had not yet arrived, to teach everyone to make beautiful, well-composed and cinematographically flat plans. The problem is that with that southern slowness does not stop me from motivating

deadzombie What the hell is Will Rogers doing in this movie.Will Rogers and all these old Gezzers shouting about Dixie.The Fox Studio must have been desperate to make a crappy movie about a man accused of some wrong doing and being exonerated for being brave in a confederate Battle,I thought the South lost the war. because you would never know.Total crap. Whats heroic about the keeping of slaves?? This is the same inhumanness that kept people in bondage and your trying to portray the Confederate Army as Heroic. total crap.This was an excuse to portray the South as Heroic. I am embarrassed to watch this stupid movie and explain to some young people about what the civil war was about, and more disgraceful they used poor Negroes to play Dixie songs outside the courthouse.and then parade them through town. what a total disgrace. there was nothing funny about slavery,there is nothing funny about War.Insulting to Americans and all free peoples.

LCShackley This film has about as much content and charm as could fit into a 30-minute short feature. Yet John Ford et al spread this syrupy molasses mixture over 80 minutes.I like Will Rogers, but his performance as JUDGE PRIEST seems like he's talking in his sleep. His dialog goes so slowly that it almost seems like he's making it up on the spot, while recovering from a blow to the head.The stock characters and situations may charm a hard-core Dixielander, but for modern viewers, JUDGE PRIEST will seem cornball or downright embarrassing. For instance, it's nice to hear Hattie McDaniel sing, but not Stephen Foster's line, "'tis summer, the darkies are gay." And there's only so much of Stepin Fetchit that anyone, black or white, can take in one sitting. (One of the worst moments is when Will Rogers does an excruciatingly slow bit of dialog where he plays two characters: his own and Fetchit's.) There are some cute Rogers moments, and Francis Ford steals the show as an old Reb jury member who has a sharp eye for a spittoon. But I found myself wanting to hit "fast forward" just to get this slow mule-cart of a movie to get going.