NOTE: The below Blu-ray captures were taken directly from the Blu-ray disc.

ADDITION: Kino Blu-ray (August 2025): Kino have transferred James P. Hogan's The Farmer's Daughter to Blu-ray. This restoration effort preserves the black-and-white cinematography by Leo Tover (The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Heiress, Journey to the Center of the Earth) with impressive clarity, maintaining a natural film grain structure that is supported by the 1080P presentation. While the source material from Paramount's B-movie vaults shows minor signs of age, including occasional specks, scratches, and slight flicker in transitional scenes, the overall transfer excels in depth and stability, particularly in interior shots lit for comedic effect, where shadows and highlights are rendered with nuance, allowing viewers to appreciate the subtle visual gags and expressive faces of performers like Martha Raye in high definition for the first time. The bitrate, on a single-layered disc, offers smooth playback without compression issues. The HD presentation is reasonably consistent.

NOTE: We have added 42 more large resolution Blu-ray captures (in lossless PNG format) for DVDBeaver Patrons HERE

On their Blu-ray, Kino use a DTS-HD Master dual-mono track (24-bit) in the original English language. Subtle sound effects, from the clattering of farm tools during slapstick falls to the ambient rural noises, are rendered with surprising fidelity given the film's age. The uncredited score, composed by Charles Bradshaw (Where There's Life, The Lady Eve, The Miracle of Morgan's Creek, Sullivan's Travels) John Leipold (An American Tragedy, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dangerous to Know, King of Chinatown, Christmas in July, The Devil is a Woman, The Flying Deuces, Duck Soup,) and Victor Young (No Time For Love, Arise My Love, Union Pacific, The Accused, Strategic Air Command, The Sun Shines Bright, Johnny Guitar, China Gate,) provides an upbeat, orchestral backdrop blending whimsical cues for comedic chaos with romantic swells, enhancing the narrative's shift from farmyard antics to stage triumph. It incorporates lively arrangements that support the genre's hybrid of comedy and music, featuring diegetic songs performed by Raye, such as a folksy rendition of Stephen Foster's "Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair" (arranged by David Rose), the playful "Jungle Jingle" (music by Harry Revel, lyrics by Mack Gordon), and a piano-accompanied "There's No Place Like Home (Home, Sweet Home)" by H.R. Bishop. These numbers showcase Raye's boisterous vocal style - loud, expressive, and comedic - serving as highlights that punctuate the plot, with sound design focusing on exaggerated effects for slapstick (e.g., crashes and thuds) and snappy banter among the ensemble, all mixed to foreground performance over subtlety. The Lossless audio transfer maintains a balanced frequency response with solid midrange presence and restrained bass that avoids muddiness. Kino offer optional English subtitles on their Region 'A' Blu-ray.

The Kino Blu-ray offers a newly recorded audio commentary track from film historian Farran Smith Nehme (Missing Reels,) who provides an engaging, scholarly deep dive into the production history, drawing on her expertise in Golden Age Hollywood to discuss Martha Raye's vaudeville roots and her underappreciated comedic timing, the contributions of director James P. Hogan (The Last Train From Madrid, The Mad Goul) in crafting efficient B-movie farces, and the film's thematic ties to Depression-era escapist entertainment, all while offering scene-specific insights like the influences of screwball comedies on the romantic subplots and anecdotes about supporting cast members such as William Frawley's pre-I Love Lucy roles; Nehme's commentary is well-paced, informative without being overly academic, and enriched with contextual details on the screenplay's origins from Delmer Daves' story, making it a standout supplement that elevates the disc's educational appeal. Beyond that are a handful of trailers although none for 1940's The Farmer's Daughter.

James P. Hogan's The Farmer's Daughter is a brisk 60-minute musical comedy that exemplifies the era's B-movie farces, blending slapstick humor, romantic entanglements, and Broadway satire in a rural setting. The plot centers on Broadway producer Nickie North (Charles Ruggles) and his press agent Scoop Trimble (William Demarest), who secure funding for a new show from an investor who demands out-of-town rehearsals at a remote farm and the casting of North's temperamental ex-girlfriend, Clarice Sheldon (Gertrude Michael), as the lead. The narrative draws from a story by Delmer Daves (Cowboy, Dark Passage, The Red House, The Hanging Tree,) with a screenplay by Lewis R. Foster (Those Redheads from Seattle,) emphasizing familiar tropes of city slickers clashing with country folk, reminiscent of screwball comedies popular in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Thematically, The Farmer's Daughter explores the contrast between urban sophistication and rural simplicity, satirizing the cutthroat world of show business while romanticizing small-town values. Kino's Blu-ray edition of the 1940 The Farmer's Daughter stands as a commendable archival release for a charming but forgotten B-musical comedy, bringing Martha Raye's radiant performance and the film's breezy blend of rural slapstick and Broadway satire to modern audiences with technical polish that far surpasses expectations for a low-budget Paramount production from the era. Fans of the genre will be pleased. 

Gary Tooze