Ceticultsot Beautiful, moving film.

Sexyloutak Absolutely the worst movie.

Brennan Camacho Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

Sienna-Rose Mclaughlin The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Martin Bradley It's almost impossible now to watch John Ford's "Judge Priest" without putting it into an historical context. I'm not sure Afro-American audiences could watch it at all for this is probably the most patronizing picture of Afro-Americans ever put on the screen. Five minutes of Stepin Fetchit is enough for any man. Indeed ten minutes of Will Rogers' Judge Priest is probably enough for any man too. You have to dig deep to find its few charms. Ford thought enough of it to virtually remake it as "The Sun Shines Bright" with Charles Winninger as Priest. It was vastly superior in every respect, still patronizing but now tempered with hindsight as well as considerable sentiment while Winninger was magnificent as the judge. Ford may have been American cinema's premiere poet but this is not his finest hour.

deadzombie What the hell is Will Rogers doing in this movie.Will Rogers and all these old Gezzers shouting about Dixie.The Fox Studio must have been desperate to make a crappy movie about a man accused of some wrong doing and being exonerated for being brave in a confederate Battle,I thought the South lost the war. because you would never know.Total crap. Whats heroic about the keeping of slaves?? This is the same inhumanness that kept people in bondage and your trying to portray the Confederate Army as Heroic. total crap.This was an excuse to portray the South as Heroic. I am embarrassed to watch this stupid movie and explain to some young people about what the civil war was about, and more disgraceful they used poor Negroes to play Dixie songs outside the courthouse.and then parade them through town. what a total disgrace. there was nothing funny about slavery,there is nothing funny about War.Insulting to Americans and all free peoples.

Andres Salama In a sleepy small town in Kentucky during the 1890s, an idiosyncratic judge (the Priest of the title, played by Will Rogers, in one of his last roles) defends the innocence of a taciturn man accused of assailing other town folk, by proving that he was a hero of the Confederacy during the Civil War. If you forget the blatant, unthinking racism of the movie (by the end, you have the dimwitted blacks of the town playing Dixie) and its saccharine sentimentality, this film is a good portrayal of the mores and traditions of the Scotch-Irish (or, if you prefer, the rednecks) that forms the backbone of America's personal character. Also, this movie also shows why Stepin Fetchit was such a controversial performer. Recommended with reservations.

Michael_Elliott Judge Priest (1934) *** 1/2 (out of 4) Wonderful film has Will Rogers playing the title role who has his own way of making justice prevail. Set in a small Kentucky town, the judge must battle a wide range of subjects but all of them seem to center around a mysterious man who is charged with assault. I wasn't too thrilled with the previous Rogers/Ford film that I watched but this one here hits all the right marks. Ford's love of Southern loyalty is certainly on full display from start to finish but he also paints a film that isn't really about anything yet it's about everything. Ford paints a terrific and authentic view of the South and even manages to work other items in like patriotic war battles and moving on in time. I think some of the best moments happen between Rogers and a black man named Jeff (Stepin Fetchit) who the judge saved from being hung. The two share several scenes together and their relationship comes off very sweet and human. The performances are all extremely good with Rogers leading the way as the soft spoken judge. Tom Brown and Anita Louise are also very good as Rogers' nephew and his girlfriend. The scene stealer comes from Henry B. Walthall who plays a Reverend with a secret past that comes out during the final courtroom scene. It's forgotten today that at one time Walthall was considered one of the greatest actors out there and his performance here is very thrilling and certainly grabs ones attention.