User Reviews

"Chad Hanna" is a film that might not be for you. While it's a very good film, it is a bit slow and if you are looking for huge thrills and excitement, you might be a bit disappointed--even though it is a film about the circus. But the acting is very, very nice and I think it's worth your seeing.

The film is set in the US in the 1840s. Chad Hanna (Henry Fonda) is a country boy who gets himself into trouble trying to help a runaway slave. So, he takes refuge with a traveling circus run by Guy Kibbee and Jane Darwell (who is wearing a fat suit for the movie). There, he becomes infatuated with a lady trick rider (Dorothy Lamour). At the same time, a young lady (Linda Darnell) runs away from her abusive father--the same guy who is the scum-bag tracking down the escaped slave. Over time, Hanna Fonda's character falls for Darnell and they marry. What happens next you'll need to see for yourself.

There are a few exciting moments here and there--but not that many. Even the film's big crisis near the end isn't THAT big--and it resolves itself rather quickly and easily. But the film is fun and it's worth seeing for the acting. In particular, it's amazing to see how beautiful and poised Darnell is--as she' only 17 when she made the film. This does, by the way, make her love scenes with Fonda a bit....ooky. Still, it's well worth seeing.

Twentieth Century-Fox must have had high expectations for this film, as it was made in beautiful Technicolor--something reserved for only a few movies this year since it was very expensive to make a color film at this time.

Also, if you care, one of the thugs at the 34 minute mark in the film is Rondo Hatton in an unbilled role--he's the one that talks, by the way.

Twentieth Century-Fox must have had high expectations for this film, as it was made in beautiful Technicolor--something reserved for only a few movies this year since it was very expensive to make a color film at this time.

SYNOPSIS: A circus picture from the pen of Walter D. Edmonds (Drums Along the Mohawk), Chad Hanna turns out to be the name of the title character, a small town, small-time American rustic. (Unfortunately, Henry Fonda transforms this lovable loon into a melodramatically overblown figure of unrequited love).

COMMENT: Alas, Chad Hanna is at its best when Hanna himself is not on the screen. It's a role requiring a light, amiable touch, but Fonda gives his Hanna a brooding, pseudo-tragic intensity quite out of keeping with the overall tone of the picture. In other respects, the movie emerges as a colorful slice of mid-19th century Americana. Most of the scenes with Guy Kibbee are flavorsome as circus candy. Kibbee gets great support from people like Roscoe Ates and Linda Darnell. There's a marvelous sequence in which Linda receives training as a bareback rider, half of it filmed in one long, dizzying take.

Superbly photographed in color by Technicolor, sequences like the circus parade come across like midnight joy. Miss Darnell also looks very attractive indeed. On the other hand, Dorothy Lamour is not favored at all. Nor does her insipid performance impress.

Producer/writer Nunnally Johnson belatedly realized that the picture needed more accent on circus lore and less on the title character. Chad Hanna finishes up not with a close-up of nominal star Henry Fonda (and/or Dorothy Lamour) but with a shot of Guy Kibbee realizing his lifelong dream of owning "a circus with a elephant." Wonderful!

I just loved that part of the movie when Chad Hanna, all resplendent in his ringmaster's uniform, is seeking to imitate A.D's confidant introduction. Circus movies have always been my guilty secret - I just love them and could definitely remember the name "Chad Hanna" from my childhood (watching it on TV). It was a lovely, rambling, watch it on a rainy afternoon story about the trials and tribulations of a small time circus that toured the American countryside in the 1840s. 20th Century Fox was one of the first studios to fully explore the possibilities of Technicolor and it gave this movie a richness and the magnificent beauty of Linda Darnell was greatly enhanced by it. This was at the beginning of her career when her fresh naturalness was just breath taking. Walter D. Edmond's books - "The Farmer Takes a Wife" (1935) and "Drums Along the Mohawk" (1939) had already been filmed and had found a perfect actor to portray their strong and honorable heroes in Henry Fonda.

In "Chad Hanna" he was absolutely splendid as the title character, a dreamy farm boy whose determination to help a runaway slave and to see "the most beautiful lady I've ever laid eyes on" - bareback rider Albany Yates (Dorothy Lamour) perform at the circus, has both him and Caroline (Linda Darnell) running for their lives. She has been beaten by her father, who is also after Chad, so they both run away with the circus. The supporting cast is like a "Who's Who" of the best players in Hollywood - Guy Kibbee as harassed circus owner A.D., Jane Darwell as his wife, John Carradine and Roscoe Ates.

Even though beautiful Caroline silently loves him, Chad has only eyes for the proud Albany, who soon shows her true colors by being easily lured over to the rival circus and leaving them now without a star attraction. A.D has always bemoaned the fact that the one addition that would put them in the big time is an elephant and now they have to train up Caroline to take Albany's place. I agree with the other reviewer, for all her regalness, Dorothy Lamour seems to be only going through the motions and then half way through she is gone!! Although the new up and coming glamour girl on the Fox lot was Linda Darnell - Lamour was a Paramount player - so it stands to reason which one was going to have the bigger, more sympathetic part.

A.D's circus is always in danger of being run out of business by their bigger, flashier rival - Shepley's Circus. Shepley's even employ their own "goons", always at the ready , armed with poles to prevent A.D's from participating in the street parade and, in the most exciting scene in the movie, threatening to burn down A.D's circus. After that riot A.D ends up in hospital and hands over the Ring Master's mantle to Chad (in my opinion John Carradine would have been the best choice - he even looked and sounded like a Ring Master) but the death of their lion - their main attraction has Chad sent from the circus in disgrace. Sure, not a great deal happens in the movie, but how Chad returns with a circus act that A.D. never dreamed they would ever have is quite exciting stuff. It also looks suspiciously like Rondo Hatton as a circus workman.

Highly Recommended.

Worth seeing simply for Jane Darwell's silly curly hairstyle, making her look like Mimi from "The Drew Carey Show" minus the garish eye makeup. Darwell and Guy Kibbee run a small traveling circus threatened by the bigger circus organizations. The main plot is about how they manage to stay afloat, filled out with the romantic escapades for dimwitted Henry Fonda who joins the show and ends up as the ringmaster.

He's initially in love with the headliner, Dorothy Lamour, but marries Linda Darnell, protecting her from her abusive father, Olin Howland. It's a different type of role for Howland who usually played comical bits, most memorably the "nope!" spouting train station clerk in "Nothing Sacred". Darwell gets the more outlandish comic relief, but it's Kibbee who gets the pathos, quite touching in tender conversations with Fonda.

Colorful but pretty uneventful for the most part, this is worth seeing just for the huge number of 20th Century Fox contract players who pop up in supporting roles, including John Carradine (who appeared in "The Grapes of Wrath" with Fonda and Darwell the same year), stutterer Roscoe Ates and Ted North. Veteran director Henry King may not have John Ford's reputation, but he directs in a steady workman like way that distracts the viewer that not much is really happening but a string of events that connects the dots and paints the numbers.