Kentucky

Film: Kentucky
Year: 1938
Cast: Loretta Young, Richard Greene, Walter Brennan, Douglass Dumbrille, Karen Morley, Moroni Olsen, Russell Hicks, Willard Robertson, Charles Waldron, Bobs Watson, Madame Sul-te-Wan, Delmar Watson, Leona Roberts, George Reed, Lillian Yarbo
Director: David Butler
Nominations: Best Supporting Actor (Brennan)

Ah, a good old southern feud!

Future Oscar winner Loretta Young and future Robin Hood Richard Greene play the latest generation in two southern horse-trading families dating back to before the Civil War; she of the cash-poor Goodwin family and he of the upscale, bank-owning Dillons. While neither family is openly hostile to the other, there's bad blood there dating back to the war, when John Dillon confiscated the Goodwin horses by order of the Union, and then shot Thad Goodwin when he complained, with his wife and two young sons, including 5-year-old Peter (Bobs Watson) looking on.

75 years later, Peter's grandniece Sally (Loretta Young) and the great-grandson of John Dillon, Jack (Richard Greene), meet and hit it off, Sally not knowing he's a Dillon. Times have been tough for the Goodwins, and Sally's father has been buying up shares of cotton, certain that its stock will rise and bring the family back to its former glory. He applies for a loan with Jack's father, John Jr. (Moroni Olsen), and is flatly turned down, and the question is open as to whether or not it's due to the decades-old feud. Almost immediately after, Sally's father dies of a heart attack when he reads in the paper that cotton stock has plummeted.

Peter himself, meanwhile, has turned into a crotchety old buzzard determined to keep the feud alive at all costs, and only approving of Sally hiring Jack as a horse trainer because he too is unaware of the man's parentage.

For the most part, this movie kind of writes itself, and what I just told you gives you plenty to figure out how it ends. Unlike most others on my watch list, this one is only here due to the presence of Walter Brennan, who collected his second Oscar for this film. It was his second, in fact, of three Oscars, making him the first three-time winner among actors ever, and still in very select company today. He would go on to lose his fourth and last nomination, giving him also the best ratio of wins to losses among actors. It seemed like the Academy just couldn't get enough of him back then.

How'd he do? Well, he was certainly the most memorable part of this movie, or at least the most memorable of the main story. I guess if I was disappointed at all, it was that there wasn't a lot of nuance to a character who should have been brimming with it. After all, we see just what caused his hatred of the Dillons, but aside from being a cantankerous old coot set in his ways of loving his horses and hating the Dillons, there just wasn't much to this character. I thought it would end with him realizing he can't hold on to hate forever and patching things up with the Dillons and to be fair, it's hinted that he was starting to come around and that the feud may end, but it wasn't given much focus, nor was it confirmed.

But the prologue...the prologue will stay with me for a while.

Bobs Watson plays Brennan as a boy, and holy lord does he sell the part. Child actors in old films, heck, even modern films, tended to be annoying little moppets hired because they were adorable, even if they couldn't act. Not here. No sir. My heart broke in pieces watching his extreme hurt and anger seeing his father being shot and their horses stolen. And it kept breaking as the poor kid, struggling to hold it together, tells his mother that the foals don't have any food now that their mothers have been taken. I didn't feel like I was watching a child actor playing a heart-broken kid. I felt like I was watching a heart-broken kid, and dangit if it didn't really get to me.

Now, I feel like I can't really ignore the elephant in the room here. It was the 30's in the deep south, and both families are shown employing a bevy of African American servants. No, these people are not slaves, they don't call anyone "master", and they're free to leave if they want, but it's still the 30's in the deep south, so they're shown in subservient roles and there's a lot of "yessuh, boss, nosuh, boss", etc. Think the character of Stephen from Django Unchained in that they're all clearly devoted to their employers, and, well, if it's not slavery, it's not to far a step away from it. Both families (especially the Goodwins) are shown treating their servants with love and respect, and we see the servants bantering and even talking back to their employers with no consequences. There's a tear-jerking scene where Sally is forced to let all the help go thanks to the Goodwin's financial state and she clearly thinks of them all as family and is heart-broken to lose them, and none of them want to go, but still. In 2019, these scenes are a bit uncomfortable to watch, and the actual performances from the African American cast do seem to be firmly stuck in Steppin Fetchit territory. Just having the white characters treat them with respect isn't really enough to make me ignore the kind of buffoonery and happy servitude they're shown with. It's probably accurate to the times, but that doesn't make it any easier.

I say that mainly as a warning if you're gonna watch it yourself.

We've got one more film to go for 1938 Best Supporting Actor and it's the longest of them thus far, so I'm not sure when I will be able to post about it, and after that we'll hold our own awards and decide which of these performances really won. Next up: Marie Antoinette.