Exploring England with Will Rogers (1927) User Reviews

Hayseed Looking at Thatched Roofs

[boblipton · 6/10 · 29 September 2011]

With his sharp wit, hayseed manner and love of travel, Will Rogers was a natural for travelogues, and he did a dozen or so on a trip to Europe in the late 1920s. This one starts out in Windsor Castle and then into the cultivated gardens of England, with some beautiful compositions that look like carefully dressed studio sets -- until you see the wind ruffling the leaves and the waves on the water as you watch punters row up the Thames. It's a lovely look back on a way of life that has grown utterly alien to modern people. Mr. Rogers comments on what he sees, funny at first, then simply, amazed at the beauty.

This is one of the first run of movies preserved and restored by the new Packard Campus of the Library of Congress in Culpepper, Virginia. It's not your tax dollars at work, since David Packard paid for the operations. Thanks, David.

Exploring England with Will Rogers

[Michael_Elliott · 29 September 2011]

Exploring England (1927)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

In 1927 actor Will Rogers went on a European tour where he was to lecture at several stops and he signed a deal with Pathe who would send a camera crew along with him. These twelve films would eventually be released in a series with this here being the tenth. Rogers starts off on a stage where he tells a quick joke and then it's off to England where we start at Windsor Castle before heading out to some more rural areas. If you're not familiar with this series then I guess the best way to sum it up is by saying we get to see other places with one-liners coming a mile a minute by Rogers. I'm sure many might watch these and not really enjoy the humor but I think there were actually a couple good lines here. We visit "The Dumb Bell Hotel" and Rogers informs us that it's for blondes only. Another good joke happens when we see an ugly statue and Rogers makes a Lon Chaney joke. I will admit that the majority of the jokes fall flat but there are other good things that make up for this. The cinematography was extremely good no matter where they were shooting and I was really impressed at some of the footage because it was so well shot that it almost seemed as if you were looking at a post card. At just over 11-minutes the short wears out its welcome a bit early but fans of Rogers will still want to check it out.