Tobacco Road (1941)

Pretty Good

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

This is a pretty good film with some memorable actors. "Tobacco Road" was a best selling book and later a successful play. Though comedic, the story is rather sad. We have a group of people barely having enough to eat. Because they are not very well educated or have little ambition, their choices are really limited. Jeeter, the main character, is a thief and an opportunist. As is often the case, his peccadilloes only come back to bite him. When he steals, he is too stupid to get away. I watched this movie with my father back ion the fifties and for many years it gave me my impression of what came to be called hillbillies. Of course, these stereotypes were enhanced by the very successful TV comedy, "The Beverly Hillbillies." The movie made me crawl because these people were so shortsighted and so careless and so close to the edge. I never got the humor.

'Tobacco road' is very typical and very loud. A lot of singing and screaming, and relatives playing tricks on each other, because they are... very, very poor, and not much, if at all, educated. You could look at it as a comedy (Imdb indicated so), but it's not quite that to me. Sure, the recurring loose board on the porch and such other stuff work that way, but mostly, all the other 'fun' has a layer of tragedy right underneath it.The acting is very enjoyable, with poor old struggling Jeeter Lester by Charley Grapewin as a personal favorite. But it's also terrific watching Gene Tierney as Ellie May, as the seductress poor people style; crawling through the mud, just to get a taste of a turnip. Screamin' Dude ("Now, 'dude', that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from.") Lester was something else as well; kicking and screaming the whole way through, going crazy for nothing more than a plain car horn. Yes, this film is fun, but tragedy lurks everywhere, even if it's all lined with plenty of comedic and sentimental elements.It's not for everyone, and I don't particularly want to watch it over and over, but it's still a pretty good, enjoyable film. A good 7 out of 10.

I think one of the reasons this story of impoverished farmers in the Depression South fails is that there is practically no one in it that we good, hard-working, industrious, generous, compassionate, law-abiding, God-fearing Sons of the Earth can identify with.Except possibly for Elizabeth Patterson, Charley Grapewin's resigned and practical wife, the characters seem to have the minds of children. And not cute or charming children, but self-indulgent charlatans who steal, lie, bamboozle, finagle, and make promises they know they'll never keep. That's how the movie begins and that's how it ends.Jeeter Lester's ancient mother has disappeared from their dilapidated shell of a farm house. Maybe she's gone off into the woods. She might be lost. She might even die up there. So Jeeter sits on his porch and mutters that maybe he'll go up and take a look for her sometime -- maybe next week. And he dozes off. Is this supposed to be funny? Director Ford insinuates his usual themes -- Danny Borzage's accordion music, "Shall We Gather At The River", my Grandpa built this country and now the bank is going to take it away, a scene in what may be a graveyard (Jeeter has forgotten where all his children are buried), the humiliation of the Poor Farm hanging over their heads. But it just doesn't work with this lot.The cast is pretty good at their job, except we have to note that a little bit of the dithering but sly Charles Grapewin goes a long way. He was fine as the truculent Grandpa in a supporting role in "The Grapes of Wrath" but he can't carry a picture in the lead.There are some humorous moments among all the trite sentiment but it's a curiously painful humor. When somebody comes suddenly into possession of eight hundred dollars (a fortune in 1933 rural Georgia), the first thing they do is buy a brand new Mercury convertible. By the next day it's a wreck but nobody cares. "It ain't hurt the runnin' of it none." It's something of a struggle to get through it.

After a bank purchases the land, a family of hillbillies faces eviction if it can't come up with the rent. Based on a Caldwell novel that in turn became a stage play, this is very broad comedy that rarely rises above the level of The Three Stooges. Grapewin plays a lazy farmer who has so many children that he and his wife can't keep track of them. Tracy is horribly over-the-top as one of the grown children living at home. Tierney is third billed as Tracy's useless sister but barely has a line of dialog. Rambeau does OK as a neighbor. Andrews plays the only character who has some dignity. Every once in a while Ford came up with a real clunker, and this is one of them.