"The Medicine Man"

1930
-directed by Scott Pembroke
What an absolutely fascinating slice of cinema history. Jack Benny's first starring film role, in a movie that is perhaps correctly critiqued for not knowing what it wanted to be. As comedy it falls short, as light drama it's too heavy, as drama it's too supercilious. But still, whether through intention or accident, this movie is an entertaining piece of film history and an enthralling piece of social history. Benny plays the emcee of a traveling medicine show. All the cliches are played out...the women he uses and throws away...the locals who fall for the con game...yet these cliches are often turned on their head, as one abandoned woman catches up with the show and outdoes them in the shakedown game, and they are then further shaken down by a sheriff who spares them from the lynch mob (as long as they let him win beaucoup bucks). Fittingly, in this dark comedy, it's hard to root for anyone...but this comes across as far more honest than other films of the era. The only characters you feel sympathy for are the children of a local abusive merchant. The daughter (Betty Bronson - PETER PAN) falls for Benny, and the movie keeps you guessing right up to the end regarding his intentions toward her. The abusive father, starkly portrayed by E. Alyn Warren (TARZAN THE FEARLESS), intends to marry off his daughter to the local butcher. His affirmation of the butcher's right to rape her, and patricarchal attitude in general, are at the core of what makes this film so compelling. All films are "message" films - they only vary in degrees of subtlety. But this film is a ridiculously frank portrayal of the literalness with which children (and daughters in particular) were considered the property of the father. And it's profoundly progressive in its disapproval of that reality. Adapted from a play by Elliot Lester, it's possible that his filmography was short not because of lack of talent, but because he wasn't offering the cookie-cutter fare the studios were looking for. Fascinating.