The County Chairman (1935) Review: Dusty, Rambling, and Surprisingly Fun

Is The County Chairman worth your afternoon? If you like old-school political comedies where guys chew on grass and talk about "the ladies voting," then yeah, absolutely.

But if you cannot stand Will Rogers and his slow, rambling, aw-shucks routine, you will probably want to tear your hair out. It is a very specific vibe. 🤠

The plot is pretty simple. Rogers plays Jim Hackler, a local party boss in Wyoming who has to run a clean election or win dirty.

To make things messy, his candidate is a young lawyer who is madly in love with the rival candidate's daughter. It is classic melodrama stuff, but played for gentle laughs.

I kept getting distracted by Mickey Rooney. He plays a kid named Freckles and he is just so loud.

Seriously, the kid is vibrating. He has this energy like he drank five coffees before they yelled action. ☕

Then you have Stepin Fetchit. His character is... well, it is a very uncomfortable watch today.

The movie treats him like a prop for cheap laughs, which was standard for 1935 but still makes you wince a bit. If you can look past that era's awful stereotypes, there is a decent story here.

I love how cheap some of the outdoor sets look. You can tell they just threw some dirt on a backlot and called it Wyoming.

In one scene, a dog wanders into the background and just stares at the camera for a solid ten seconds. Nobody stopped filming.

That is the kind of stuff I watch these old movies for. It feels alive and messy, unlike the super-polished studio films from MGM that year, like China Seas.

Rogers is the whole show here, really. He does this thing where he mumbles his lines like he's making them up on the spot.

Maybe he was. He has this way of looking at the other actors like he is trying not to laugh at them.

The whole women's suffrage subplot is actually pretty interesting. The movie doesn't take a hard stance, but it definitely lets the women have the last laugh.

There is a big rally scene near the end that goes on way too long. People just keep shouting slogans and waving banners.

I actually checked my phone during the second speech. It just started to feel like a real local council meeting, which is not what I want from a movie.

But then Rogers says something dry and saves the scene. His timing was just incredible.

If you liked Only Saps Work for that weird, early-30s small-town energy, this is right up your alley.

It is not a masterpiece, and some of the jokes are older than your grandparents. But it has a weirdly cozy charm.

Just don't expect a thrilling political thriller. It is mostly just old men in hats talking on porches. 🪵