El cacique

"The County Chairman" is a fair comedy drama set in 1902 Wyoming. Will Rogers is Jim Hackler, the head of a county political party. It's a fair story, based on a play of the period, which is based on an historical event of the earliest women's suffrage in the Cowboy State

Rogers whips out some of his witty quips, for which he was known. Mickey Rooney was just 15 years old when this film was made, yet he had been in more than 90 short and feature length films since his child star debut in 1926. He already had more movies under his belt than most actors and actresses who become stars would make in their entire lifetime careers. Rooney was far from the total films of the longest supporting cast and bit players who had 500 or more film credits. But, when he died at age 93 in 2014, his 343 film credits must be the most, or close to the most, of any actor who was a major star for many years.

In this film, Rooney's "Freckles" trips up a girl with his rope at a Western picnic. But for Rogers, long-time and well recognized Barton Churchill as Elias Rigby, most of the rest of the roles are forgettable. Some of the acting is still quite wooden - a carryover from the silent film days. I don't recall having seen this movie in the past, but the recent DVD I saw was of a black and white film so bleached out that the details of the faces are hardly noticeable at times.