Themes: Fighting the System, Class Differences, Eccentric Families
Main Cast: Charles Grapewin, Marjorie Rambeau, Gene Tierney, William Tracy, Elizabeth Patterson
Release Year: 1941
Country: US
Run Time: 84 minutes
Plot
Erskine Caldwell's once-scandalous novel Tobacco Road resulted in an equally steamy stage play by Jack Kirkland, which became one of the longest-running productions in Broadway history. This story of indigence and amorality amongst inbred "poor whites" (based on people Caldwell had known while growing up in Georgia) had to be heavily expurgated for movie consumption, put there was plenty of comedy and colorful characterizations to suit the purposes of director John Ford. Charley Grapewin stars as Jeeter Lester, shiftless patriarch of a large backwoods clan. The Lesters are about to be thrown off their land for nonpayment of rent, but anyone who tries to help them--or to alter their lifestyle--is chased away by the poverty-stricken but intensely proud Jeeter. Tobacco Road succeeded on the basis of its title alone, even though no one expected the film to be anywhere near as earthy as the stage version (it would have been impossible under prevailing censorship to include the play's famous opening scene, in which the family watches intently while a teenage girl masturbates!) ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
Novelist Erskine Caldwell wrote a sensational book of Americana about a group of poor white sharecroppers in Georgia who are turned off their land by wealthy businessmen. The novel, one of the richest and most finely detailed depictions of class struggle in the United States, became a successful play by Jack Kirkland. Nunnally Johnson adapted it for the screen, and the legendary John Ford was a natural to direct. His Westerns were always character studies played out against an authentic rural landscape, and Tobacco Road had the same ingredients. The sterling cast contained many lesser-known actors in starring roles, including Charley Grapewin and Elizabeth Patterson. Essentially an ensemble slice-of-life movie, it can best be compared to Ford's The Grapes of Wrath, made a year earlier. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide
