Fox's original State Fair (1933), a non-musical comedy that provided the template for all the versions, is the simple story of an Iowa farm family that goes to the state fair. Dad Abel (Will Rogers) shows off his pig Blue Boy; mother Melissa (Louise Dresser) enters her mincemeat in a competition; and daughter Margy (Janet Gaynor) and son Wayne (Norman Foster) both fall in love with strangers they meet. The film was nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award, but lost to Cavalcade (1933).
The 1945 remake added Technicolor and an original musical score by Rodgers and Hammerstein, fresh off their groundbreaking Broadway success Oklahoma! (1943). State Fair was Rodgers and Hammerstein's only musical written directly for the screen, and included future standards such as "It's a Grand Night for Singing" and "It Might as Well be Spring," which won an Oscar® for Best Original Song. This version starred Charles Winninger and Fay Bainter as the parents, Jeanne Crain and singer Dick Haymes as the kids, and Dana Andrews and Vivian Blaine as their love interests.
Everything was bigger in the 1962 version of State Fair, but not necessarily better. Looking for wide vistas for the Cinemascope screen, Fox executives decided to set the film in Texas instead of Iowa, which meant that one song from the original score, "All I Owe Ioway," wouldn't work. Lyricist Oscar Hammerstein had died in 1960, so composer Richard Rodgers wrote both the music and lyrics for a replacement song, "It's the Little Things in Texas," as well as four other new songs. None of them became classics. The film was directed by José Ferrer, a multitalented stage actor-director-musician and Oscar®-winning film actor (for 1950's Cyrano de Bergerac) and director. However, Ferrer had never directed a musical, and most critics found his work on State Fair uninspired. It was the last film he directed.
In 1945, the same year that first musical version of State Fair hit the screen, Alice Faye walked out of her contract at 20th Century Fox, angry that studio executive Darryl Zanuck had cut her best scenes from the drama Fallen Angel. With Zanuck out of power by 1961, Faye agreed to return to the studio to play Melissa Frake in the remake of State Fair. She had hoped to reunite with her Fox co-star Don Ameche from In Old Chicago (1937) and Alexander's Ragtime Band (1938), and director Henry King, who not only had directed those two hits, but the 1933 State Fair as well. Instead, Tom Ewell was cast as Abel, with Ferrer directing. Although she received good reviews, Faye didn't have much to do in the film except complain that family members weren't showing up for dinner, but she did sing a couple of songs. After State Fair, Faye went back into retirement, and only made an occasional cameo appearance thereafter.
Pat Boone was a squeaky-clean pop singer -- the anti-Elvis -- who rose to fame in the mid-1950s singing covers of R&B hits such as Fats Domino's "Ain't that a Shame" and "Blueberry Hill." Fox had signed him to a contract at the height of his fame, and starred him in a series of films aimed at his teenage female fans in which he played variations of his genial, low-key persona. While making his second film, April Love (1957), the devoutly Christian Boone made headlines when he supposedly refused to kiss his co-star Shirley Jones. Boone later said that he only told the director that he wanted to discuss it with his wife before he kissed another woman, and he did kiss his co-stars in most of his films. Still, the trailer for State Fair wasn't lying when it promised "Pat Boone as you're never seen him before!" Boone's torrid onscreen romance with Ann-Margret, who played the been-around singer in State Fair, went beyond the chaste kisses of his earlier films. In one scene, the two share a steamy clinch in her hotel room with a bed prominently featured behind them. The scene discreetly fades out before the inevitable conclusion. The tee-totaling Boone also has a convincing drunk scene. Years later, Boone and director Ferrer became in-laws when Boone's daughter Debby married Ferrer's son Gabriel.
Ann-Margret had just signed a contract with Fox when she appeared in State Fair. She auditioned for the role of Margy, but was cast as Emily because she looked too sexy to play a naïve farm girl. Her sizzling production number in the film not only showed off her musical talent, it earned her instant sex symbol status. State Fair was her first film, although Pocketful of Miracles (1961), made on loanout to Columbia, was released first. In 1962, she won a Golden Globe Award as "New Star of the Year."
In spite of all this talent, State Fair was not the box office hit that Fox hoped it would be. It cost $4.4 million to make, and grossed only $3.5 million. Some critics thought Alice Faye was wasted and found pop star Bobby Darin, who played the reporter, abrasive, with Pamela Tiffin bland and boring as Margy. Boone and Ann-Margret came off the best. New York Times critic Bosley Crowther praised their "bouncy performances," but was not impressed with the film. "One could credit José Ferrer with maintaining a brisk pace in his direction, but he does little to relieve the film's lack of surprise," he wrote. Crowther's critique of the way the Rodgers and Hammerstein songs were used in State Fair summed up what a lot of critics were saying about the overblown musicals of the early 1960s: "In updating the story, the rustic charm of a country fair has been superseded by a neon-lit Dallas, as ultra-modern a site as a missile launching area. This modernization seems to have erased some of that old-time charm for which the boys appear to be striving."
Director: José Ferrer
Producer: Charles Brackett
Screenplay: Richard Breen, adapted from the screenplay by Oscar Hammerstein II, Sonya Levien, Paul Elliot Green, based in the book by Phillip Stong
Cinematography: William C. Mellor
Editor: David Bretherton
Costume Design: Marjorie Best
Art Direction: Jack Martin Smith, Walter M. Simonds
Music: Oscar Hammerstein II and Richard Rodgers
Cast: Pat Boone (Wayne Frake), Bobby Darin (Jerry Dundee), Pamela Tiffin (Margy Frake), Ann-Margret (Emily Porter), Tom Ewell (Abel Frake), Alice Faye (Melissa Frake), Wally Cox (Hipplewaite), David Brandon (Harry), Clem Harvey (Doc Cramer).
C-118m. Letterboxed.
by Margarita Landazuri
