Sherry Chandler

It’s time for Reel Kentucky over at the Kentucky History Center. This Sunday’s feature is “Steamboat Round the Bend,” a film loosely based on Ben Lucien Burman’s 1933 novel by the same title.

Ben Lucien Burman (1895-1984 – roughly co-eval with my own grandfather) was born in Covington (Lookout Heights), worked as a journalist, was injured in World War I, and won a French Legion of Honor for his work as a war correspondent in World War II. In 1927, he married Elizabeth Cady, and in 1929, he and Elizabeth signed on with the Tennessee Belle as roustabout and cook. This experience seems to have been formative, for between 1929 (The Mississippi) and 1978 (Look Down that Winding River), Burman wrote 18 novels about life on the river boats. These books won prizes, were book club selections, were made into movies and plays.

Burman also wrote a series of prize-winning animal fables for children, set in mythical Catfish Bend on the Mississippi. Illustrated by Elizabeth Cady Burman, the Catfish Bend stories were translated into ten languages. So many people came looking for the place that the city of Baton Rouge and the U.S. Coast Guard designated a river light Catfish Bend.

I got this information from William S. Ward’s A Literary History of Kentucky, because I had never heard of Ben Lucien Burman and had to look him up. According to Ward:

Some readers and critics complain that Burman’s [riverboat]books are too gentle and too sweet…they ignore the seamy and criminal side of the world he writes about, that there is no penetrating analysis and no earnest search for meaning. Indeed, it must be said that seldom does he allow anything bad to happen…His characters have their faults but they are childlike faults … Though not profound books, they are not devoid of meaning. As a matter of fact, Burman repeatedly insists, “The theme of every book I have written is the child-likeness of all humanity. We are all children, groping our way through life, we know not how, seeking the Holy Grail.”

You can buy a first edition of Steamboat Round the Bend over at Between the Covers for a bargain $300.You’ll find the Burman papers at Tulane and a description of the Burman historical marker here.

The film, “Steamboat Round the Bend,” was directed by John Ford, stars Will Rogers in his last movie performance and features Paducah native Irvin S. Cobb.

If, like me, you would like to know more about this remarkable Kentuckian or if you just love old movies, go on over to the historical center this Sunday (Feb 20, 2 pm). (While you’re there, check out the Keeneland Changing Exhibit “A River Runs Through Us,” all about the rivers in Kentucky and the role they’ve played in our history.) Kentucky State University film scholar Steven Gale and KHS curator Michael Hudson will lead a brief discussion after the film. Running time: 80 minutes. The event is free and so’s the popcorn!