To begin with, "State Fair" was not adapted from a stage musical; it was adapted from a non-musical 1933 film, which was in turn adapted from a novel by Phil Stong. Years later, "State Fair" WAS re-adapted into a Broadway musical, and promptly flopped.
Maybe it was the way it was adapted, but the 1945 film is still a great disappointment, especially in comparison to Rodgers and Hammerstein's great classics. There is a good reason for this. The composer-authors of a musical generally have less creative control over a film musical than over a stage one, a notable exception being "Gigi", over which Lerner and Loewe had almost total control. Film musicals of the 1940's were generally treated like assembly-line products, and the composer and lyricist/librettist merely like expendable hired hands who could easily be replaced. It was the studio which often suggested the subject matter of a musical, and studios nearly always played it safe.
Rodgers and Hammerstein had total creative control over their shows on Broadway, and the same applies to the film versions of their shows, but they did not have total control over this film. That is why "State Fair" feels more like a typical sappy musical of the 1940's than a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, and why it does not use all of the stage techniques they were so famous for, although Hammerstein did write the screenplay. The storyline is blah, the characters are sickeningly wholesome stereotypes, not all the songs are integrated into the story, and instead of there being eighteen or nineteen songs, there are only six, because the film runs only slightly more than ninety minutes. (The cast, with the hilarious exception of Donald Meek as a pie-tasting judge, is just as bland as everything else; several of them have been much better in other films.) The songs are nice, but that is all they are, just nice, not beautiful.
Maybe it was the way it was adapted, but the 1945 film is still a great disappointment, especially in comparison to Rodgers and Hammerstein's great classics. There is a good reason for this. The composer-authors of a musical generally have less creative control over a film musical than over a stage one, a notable exception being "Gigi", over which Lerner and Loewe had almost total control. Film musicals of the 1940's were generally treated like assembly-line products, and the composer and lyricist/librettist merely like expendable hired hands who could easily be replaced. It was the studio which often suggested the subject matter of a musical, and studios nearly always played it safe.
Rodgers and Hammerstein had total creative control over their shows on Broadway, and the same applies to the film versions of their shows, but they did not have total control over this film. That is why "State Fair" feels more like a typical sappy musical of the 1940's than a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, and why it does not use all of the stage techniques they were so famous for, although Hammerstein did write the screenplay. The storyline is blah, the characters are sickeningly wholesome stereotypes, not all the songs are integrated into the story, and instead of there being eighteen or nineteen songs, there are only six, because the film runs only slightly more than ninety minutes. (The cast, with the hilarious exception of Donald Meek as a pie-tasting judge, is just as bland as everything else; several of them have been much better in other films.) The songs are nice, but that is all they are, just nice, not beautiful.