The Erie Canal opened in 1825, and this summer from Albany to Buffalo there have been celebrations of this milestone in American history. From concerts to museum exhibits, upstate New York has been tributing the extraordinary advancement in modern transportation that the Canal provided.
Ninety years ago, a play opened on Broadway called The Farmer Takes a Wife. It was written by Frank B. Elser and Marc Connelly. Leading the cast were June Walker, a veteran stage and film actor, and Henry Fonda, a handsome actor in his late twenties whose career till then was stagebound. The play ran from October 30, 1934 to January 16, 1935.
Fox Film Corporation bought the movie rights and gave the play a first-class treatment. Victor Fleming, whose directorial skills would bring viewers Red Dust, Captain’s Courageous, The Good Earth, Gone with the Wind, and The Wizard of Oz, took the helm.
Janet Gaynor, the first actress to win an Oscar, was given the lead of Molly Larkins, a spirited young cook on an Erie Canal packet boat. In one of Hollywood’s more brilliant moves, Henry Fonda was hired to reenact his stage role of Dan Harrow, a gentlemanly guy who takes a job as packet boat driver on the canal to raise money to buy a farm. Yes, this 1935 feature film was Henry Fonda’s screen debut.
The Farmer Takes a Wife is a romantic tale of Molly and Dan’s courtship. As such, it’s an entertaining film that I recommend to anyone who likes 1930s Hollywood movies. Yet it is so much more than that. This film is as much about life on the Erie Canal in or about 1850, as it is a romantic yarn. There are the boats, the locks, the canal provisions stores. Cities mentioned, even highlighted, are Little Falls, Rome, Utica, Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo. A lively country fair takes place in Oneida County. There is a large poster of Junius Brutus Booth playing Richard III at the Rome Opera House. (He was John Wilkes Booth’s father.)
The music, the songs sung by the canal folks, are the songs from that era that we sang in grade school. We hear the canal people put down the upcoming power of the railroads. We see them watching immigrants in covered wagons on the road parallel to the canal; they’re on their way west, some all the way to California. Surely, that road would be Route 5 or Route 5S!
And there are Indians along the canal route, in the village of Whitesboro. They speak their own language and discuss government treaties they expect to be forthcoming. I was pleased to see Indians in a 1935 Hollywood film being taken seriously… until a character makes a cheap joke comparing the Indians to a comical canal worker who stinks of hogs.
Henry Fonda’s first film performance begins in a mellow mood. He is sweet, quiet, at times even a bit lethargic. Throughout the film, his performance builds -- partly because of the story-related build-up, and partly probably due to Fonda’s growing comfort level. Janet Gaynor was one of the finest screen actors of the late 1920s and thirties. She received a second Academy Award for her lead role in A Star is Born in 1937.
More than enough of The Farmer Takes a Wife is accurate to call it an educational about life on the Erie Canal. A musical remake with the same title was released in 1953. It stars Betty Grable and Dale Robertson. I haven’t been able to see it yet, but film stills indicate it isn’t as accurate a portrait of that long-gone style of life.
Audrey Kupferberg is a film and video archivist and retired appraiser. She is lecturer emeritus and the former director of Film Studies at the University at Albany and co-authored several entertainment biographies with her late husband and creative partner, Rob Edelman.
The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.
