A 1933 film captured the American state fair experience before strict censorship took hold
In short: Before the Hays Code strictly policed Hollywood, the 1933 film State Fair offered a candid look at rural life and youthful romance. While the Frakes family chased blue ribbons for their prize pig and spiked mincemeat, their children navigated complex affairs that eventually drew the ire of film censors.
Directed by Henry King and based on Phil Stong’s 1932 novel, the 1933 production of State Fair stands as a significant piece of pre-Code American cinema. The narrative follows the Frakes family as they travel from the fictional town of Brunswick, Iowa, to the state fair. Patriarch Abel is obsessed with winning a hog competition with his pig, Blue Boy, while his wife, Melissa, enters her pickles and mincemeat into a cooking contest. The film’s charm lies in this domestic pursuit, complicated by Abel’s secret addition of apple brandy to the mincemeat and the children’s romantic entanglements.
The film’s portrayal of romance was notably mature for its era. While the daughter, Margy, navigates a budding relationship with a reporter named Pat Gilbert, her brother Wayne experiences a more intense encounter with a trapeze artist named Emily Joyce. This specific subplot—involving the seduction of Wayne by Emily—eventually caused significant friction with the Hays Commission. When the studio, Fox, attempted to re-release the film in 1935, censors demanded the removal of a suggestive scene where the two characters were heard off-screen while the camera focused on a rumpled bed and a discarded negligee. This deleted footage has never been restored to the film.
Despite these controversies, the film was a critical success, earning Academy Award nominations for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay. Its cultural legacy was cemented in 2014 when the Library of Congress selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry. The 1933 version remains the first of four film adaptations of Stong’s novel, preceding versions released in 1945, 1962, and 1976. Today, it serves as a fascinating time capsule of a bygone era in filmmaking, offering a glimpse into the tension between creative freedom and the encroaching moral standards of the mid-1930s.
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- Summary by Intellect · source: State Fair (1933 film)
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