Banjo on My Knee (film)

Last updated

Banjo on My Knee
Banjo on My Knee FilmPoster.jpeg
Film poster
Directed by John Cromwell
Written by Harry Hamilton (novel)
Screenplay by Nunnally Johnson
Based onBanjo on My Knee (1936 novel)
Produced by Darryl F. Zanuck
Nunnally Johnson
Starring Barbara Stanwyck
Joel McCrea
Walter Brennan
CinematographyErnest Palmer
Edited byHanson T. Fritch
Music by Charles Maxwell
Distributed by Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
Release date
  • December 11, 1936 (1936-12-11)
Running time
95 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Banjo on My Knee is a 1936 American musical comedy-drama film directed by John Cromwell. [1] The film was nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Sound Recording category for the work of Edmund H. Hansen. [2]

Contents

Plot

Ernie Holley flees on his wedding night because he thinks that he has killed a wedding guest. His father Newt and his bride Pearl find him in New Orleans and persuade him to return home.

Cast

Reception

In a contemporary review for The New York Times, critic Frank S. Nugent wrote:

If we are to believe the Roxy's "Banjo on My Knee"—and there isn't an earthly reason why we should—the picturesque shanty boaters of the Mississippi are nothing more than song-and-dance men in the rough, homegrown crooners, players of one-man bands or torch singers of limited range and a tendency to grow moist-eyed whenever they hear that old American folk-song 'The St. Louis Blues.' It is an unsettling premise, disillusioning and unthinkable, and it impels us to scowl fiercely at the ballyhoo artists who have been telling us that the new Twentieth Century-Fox picture "combines the setting of 'Tobacco Road' with the mood of 'Steamboat 'Round the Bend.'" It ain't no such thing. [3]

References

  1. Sandra Brennan (2012). "Banjo on My Knee". Movies & TV Dept. The New York Times . Archived from the original on November 4, 2012. Retrieved July 8, 2011.
  2. "The 9th Academy Awards (1937) Nominees and Winners". oscars.org. Archived from the original on July 6, 2011. Retrieved August 8, 2011.
  3. Nugent, Frank S. (December 12, 1936). "The Screen". The New York Times . p. 15.