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Tati's Jour de Fête shares the metaphor of the title event, "starts off lively, offers everything... and, all too soon, it's all over," a bit like life, n'est-ce pas? Eager preparations at the farm, Dad (Will Rogers) grooms his prized hog while Mom (Louise Dresser) contemplates adding hooch to her recipe. "A minced meat dish without brandy is sacrilege!" The anticipation extends to their kids, son (Norman Foster) wants a rematch with a ring-tossing carny and daughter (Janet Gaynor) longs for a wider view, gazing at the horizon from the back of the family jalopy. "Don't you sometimes feel like you want to go away somewhere and just raise hell?" Lights and barkers and calliope fanfares, above all romance ephemeral and lasting—the lad's infatuation with a blonde aerialist (Sally Eilers) is a phosphorescent swinging trapeze, the maiden's introduction to a newspaperman (Lew Ayres) is a vertiginous roller-coaster. (The Ferris wheel has its part to play as well, spinning behind the smitten couple to evoke tiny circling Cupids.) Henry King's dream heartland, its promise and its fragility. "I love you... but sometimes you feel like something I'll wake up from." The worldly trouper offers carnal education, the wry journalist can't promise marital faithfulness, even the oinker gets a lesson in heartbreak and transience: "Blue Boy, today you're a trophy and tomorrow you'll be a ham." Rogers' casual ad-libbing is just part of a tessitura that's attentive to marching bands and twinkling carousels, to the politician's sonorous note at the barnyard podium and to the masticating hubbub of the cooking competition jury. Lyrical downpour and peeling billboard denote a happy ending, otherwise "there's always next year." Inge makes adjustments here and there and gets Picnic. With Frank Craven, Victor Jory, Frank Melton, Hobart Cavanaugh, and Doro Merande. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |