Main Cast: Zachary Scott, Betty Field, Beulah Bondi, Percy Kilbride, Bunny Sunshine, J. Carrol Naish, Jay Gilpin
Release Year: 1945
Country: US
Run Time: 91 minutes
Plot
The Southerner was Jean Renoir's favorite of his American films. Shot on location, the film stars Zachary Scott as a sharecropper who yearns for a place of his own. On a tiny, scraggly patch of land, Scott tries to make a go of things, along with his wife Betty Field, his grandmother Beulah Bondi, and his children Jean Vanderwilt (aka Bunny Sunshine) and Jay Gilpin. Though a proud, independent man, Scott is forced by circumstance to seek help from neighboring farmer J. Carroll Naish, whose life experience have left him bitter and vituperative. The two men become enemies, but are reunited by their mutual love of fishing. Scott suffers a setback when a rainstorm destroys his cotton crop. He is about to go wearily back to working for others (specifically, factory owner Charles Kemper, who also narrates the film) when he is convinced by his never-say-die family to persevere on his own. Director Jean Renoir also wrote the script for The Southerner--in fluent English rather than French, as mental exercise. Told at a leisurely, unhurried pace, the film is the one American Renoir effort that comes closest to his "slice of life" dramas of the 1930s. The Southerner was not a box office hit, but did win the effusive praise of critics, not to mention the Venice Film Festival "best picture" award. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
One of Jean Renoir's handful of American films, The Southerner is a moving portrait of the struggle of a Southern sharecropper to hold on to his small patch of ground. Zachary Scott stars as the Texas cotton farmer who buys a small piece of land with a rundown farmhouse and tries to make a go of it against long odds. Renoir's favorite of his American films, it's one of the most realistic depictions of the harshness of rural life ever committed to the screen. Draining the film of sentimentality, he reverses the warmly comic stereotypes of rural character, surrounding Scott with a community of farmers whose ignorance, pettiness, and selfishness make his life even more difficult than his hardscrabble acreage. Renoir displays a documentarian's fascination with the full range of agricultural activities, so much so that the farm itself becomes a character in the film. While seemingly too well-bred to handle the role, Scott was raised on a Southern farm and helped the director with accuracy of detail. Mississippi-born William Faulkner, who did uncredited work on the script, provided a similar function. The excellent cast includes J. Carrol Naish, Betty Field, Beulah Bondi, and Blanche Yurka. ~ Michael Costello, All Movie Guide
The Southerner (1945) is a film directed by Jean Renoir, based on the novel Hold Autumn in Your Hand by George Sessions Perry. The film received Oscar nominations for Best Director, Original Music Score and Sound. Renoir was named Best Director by the National Board of Review, which also named the film the third best of 1945.
