Das Tal der Leidenschaften

Universal seem to have thrown a lot of cash at these sub 'Gone with the Wind' shenanigans but really should have paid more attention to the script. Although a potentially interesting idea - a small valley tries to stay neutral during the US Civil War - the movie concentrates almost exclusively on a vapid central romance lifted almost wholesale from that earlier Selznick classic.

Van Hefflin tries hard to inject the kind of dangerous humour that Clark Gable brought to Rhett Butler but Susan Hayward is hopelessly miscast as the young, flighty Southern belle. An excellent actress in the right circumstances, here she looks far too sensible for the role and resorts to a permanent wide-eyed stare to convey youth and innocence. She merely looks like a startled rabbit.

Elsewhere, what should have been the pivotal role of the valley's patriarch is simply not given enough screentime, thus reducing Ward Bond to the occasional ineffectual splutter and the climax to an empty, mechanical spectacle devoid of emotional resonance. Boris Karloff brings a touch of class to the role of the friendly native American retainer but Julie London is wasted in a thankless role.

Overall, it's the kind of picture that the studio must have presumed would make itself and this lack of commitment results in a significant lack of quality.

Half backed shenanigans down plantation way. A story of a wealthy family of farmers who wish to remain separate from the insanity of the Civil War and the fiery minx who is the eldest daughter of said family.

More interesting for what it represented to its leading lady than for how the film turned out. When Susan Hayward landed in Hollywood after being spotted in a magazine advertisement she was still Edythe Marrenner a green kid from Brooklyn who along with a flock of other young hopefuls tested for the role of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind. Obviously she didn't get the part and if you've ever seen her test it's obvious she was nowhere near ready. However it planted the seed for her desire to if not play Scarlett then at least play a Southern belle.

Within a short time she was discovered by producer Walter Wanger who recognized her potential and through the years carefully cultivated her career eventually making the film which won her the Oscar, I Want to Live! Along the way, about a decade after her initial GWTW test, Wagner developed this mint julep mediocrity for her to fulfill her dream. The thing is it's an odd choice to achieve that goal. Her character, the interestingly named Morna Dabney, after making a memorable entrance disappears for great swathes of the film's running time, first through infirmity and then being removed from the main action of the story for most of the climax. When the camera does train itself on her she is breathtaking, at the peak of her beauty in gorgeous Technicolor but the script hands her a confused character to play, one minute pining for the lout who runs off with her hussy of a sister, a young and lovely Julie London who is given little to do, the next passionate about Van Heflin playing another murkily defined role. Around the edges of the story are Boris Karloff ludicrously cast as an Indian and Ward Bond who by the end is hamming it up to the nth degree.

This is beautifully produced but a moderate affair. However for fans of Miss Hayward it's worth watching once but she has many much better movies in her filmography.

The story is about the Dabney family and it begins in Mississippi just before the Civil War. The Dabneys are a proud family and not in favor of secession. But they and the folks around them are a distinct minority and eventually they end up seceding from Mississippi once the state joins the Confederacy. Not surprisingly, the new Confederacy is NOT pleased that this county has joined the Union...and bad things are a comin'.

But there's much more to the tale and it centers around Morna Dabney (Susan Hayward). She is vivacious and beloved by Clay--a man who loves the idea of war and secession. But when Morna is injured and it appears as if she'll never walk again, Clay shows his true colors...and the roguish Keith (Van Helfin) steps up and shows he really is a heck of a guy.

This is enjoyable and with very nice acting. The only real problem is that what happens to the Dabneys and the county is pretty much foreordained and there are few surprises here. The story, by the way, was inspired by a similar situation in Jones county, where such a rebellion against the state of Mississippi occurred.

Among the hundreds of hopefuls for the role of Scarlett O'Hara was young Susan Hayward who was about as unknown as you could get when David O. Selznick was testing potential Scarletts. Almost a decade later Hayward got to play a lead as a southern belle in Tap Roots. Although there are some superficial resemblances to Scarlett O'Hara in Morna Dabney this film is not Gone With The Wind by a stretch.

This is set in Mississippi at the beginning of the Civil War. The Dabneys are the local Cartwrights in the area, a proud plantation family with the requisite slaves. However they regard the Lebanon valley area and all its residents as serfs blacks and whites and Russell Simpson the head of the clan correctly sees that if Lincoln is elected and there is civil war, it's going to end badly for the south and life which includes slavery ownership for him is at an end. So his solution is for his part of Mississippi to secede from the rest of the state and declare neutrality. But Simpson dies and his son Ward Bond sends out a call to all who don't favor secession to join him in his valley fortress and keep the impending Civil War out.

Bond has two daughters, Susan Hayward and Julie London and a son Richard Long. Hayward is courted by cynical newspaper owner/editor Van Heflin, the Rhett Butler of the piece and Whitfield Connor a soldier set to leave the army and fight for the south. Hayward has them both panting hot and heavy for her and her love life gets hopelessly entangled with the politics of the Civil War.

There were pockets of Union sentiment all over the South during the war. Not everyone wanted to fight for some planter's right to own people. But nowhere was there anything like this recorded in the history of the era. Union sympathizers simply hunkered down and waited for the war to end however it would.

Hayward and Heflin are a pair of my favorite players and they were both good, doing as best they could to carry a preposterous plot premise. Ward Bond has a great scene going totally mad as he sees his valley being shot to smithereens by the Confederate army.

Boris Karloff is also in the cast. He plays a Choctaw Indian medicine man who seems to be the only one around and he's a retainer of Russell Simpson, a kind of Dabney family guardian. I'm sure the book on which Tap Roots is adapted better explains his presence, but he seems grafted into the film as far as I could tell.

Tap Roots is far from the worst film Hayward and Heflin were ever involved in. Still if Universal Pictures thought they had their own Gone With The Wind, they fell way short of the mark.

"Tap Roots" is a very good Southern drama set in Mississippi at the start of the Civil War. The story evolves around the Dabney family in the Lebanon Valley. Big Sam Dabney had settled the area and befriended a native Choctaw Indian, Tishomingo. He became a faithful companion and overseer of the Dabney estate and valley, with Sam's son, Hoab.

Hoab's three children are Bruce, Morna and Aven. Big Sam wants to see Morna married to her fiancé, Clay MacIvor, before he dies. MacIvor is a captain in the Army, and he and Morna are having an elegant home built. He won't marry until the house is finished; then, at the threat of war, he has further reason to wait. MacIvor's sentiments are strongly with the South, should it secede from the Union. But the Dabney men want no part of secession.

A third main character enters the story after Big Sam dies. Keith Alexander, publisher and editor of an influential and widely read newspaper writes a glowing tribute to Sam. But, Bruce thinks it's an insult to his grandfather. Tishomingo rides with Bruce to confront the editor, who had a reputation as a lady's man and for killing 20 men in pistol duels. Tishomingo's presence was to ensure that Bruce didn't become one of those dueling casualties.

But all turns out well after the mature and wiser Alexander sidesteps Bruce's charge and apologizes. He insists on going with them to apologize to the whole family. Most of the family befriend Alexander who falls for Morna. But he and MacIvor have an immediate dislike for one another. Thus begins a drama of war, romance, hatred, betrayal, revenge and love.

The film has a superb cast. Both leads are Oscar-winners - van Heflin (Alexander) having won his in 1943 for his supporting role in Johnny Eager. Susan Hayward (Morna Dabney) would win her best actress Oscar in 1959 for "I Want to Live." Others include Julie London (as Aven), Ward Bond (as Hoab), Richard Long (as Bruce), Russell Simpson (as Big Sam), Ruby Dandridge (as Dabby), Arthur Shields (as Rev. Kirkland), Whitfield Connor (as Clay MacIvor), and Boris Karloff (as Tishomingo).

Most of these and other supporting roles were very good. A few tidbits about various members of the cast are worth noting. Arthur Shields had a fine film career but never became as famous as his brother, Barry Fitzgerald. This is one of the few straight dramatic roles that Boris Karloff had in a career of more than 200 films, including 60 in the silent era. Karloff is widely recognized for his monster and horror films since playing Frankenstein in 1931. But he played diverse roles in early years. Ward Bond was well recognized over time as a solid sidekick to leading men in tons of Westerns, war films, mysteries and other action films. His career spanned just under 30 years. He died of a heart attack at age 57 in 1960. Except for Karloff who lived to be 81 and died in 1969, the rest of the leads in this film all had short lives. Three of them would die in the early 1970s. Van Heflin died of a heart attack in 1971. He was 61. But, Richard Long was only 47 when he died in 1974, after several heart attacks. And, Susan Hayward died in 1975 at age 57 of brain cancer.

This movie was based on a 1942 novel of the same title by James Street. It was the second of five books in his highly popular series about the Dabney family of Mississippi. While fictitious, the story borrows from history and legend, including the life of Newt Knight and Jones County, Mississippi. There was such a non-secessionist faction and area of Mississippi at the start of the Civil War. Knight was a very real person with a long and interesting history. Street, himself, had a short but interesting life. He was a one-time minister who worked as a journalist before becoming a full-time author. And, he was just 50 when he died of a heart attack. Others of Street's stories have been made into films. A short story in 1937 led to a hilarious comedy that year, "Nothing Sacred," that starred Frederic March and Carole Lombard. That also inspired the 1954 Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis comedy, "Living It Up."

"Tap Roots" couldn't match the performances or productions of the best pictures of 1948. It was one of those highly competitive years with many excellent films. But, it was no shame not to win honors against the likes of "Hamlet," "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre," "The Snake Pit," "Johnny Belinda," "Key Largo," "Red River," "Red Shoes," "Easter Parade," and many more superb films.

And, "Tap Roots" did well at the box office, taking in $6.6 million against a budget of $2.1 million. A 2016 movie based on the same story didn't fare as well. "Free State of Jones" that starred Matthew McConaughey, had only $25 million in domestic box office, against a budget of $50 million.

This is a fine drama and true love story, with a picture of the South before the Civil War. While the issue of slavery is in the background, this story is about one family, its independence and its tradition of respect for all people. Oh, yes, and just because this is a Civil War period movie that has romance, don't think it's anything like "Gone with the Wind" of 1939. They're two completely different stories, with very different characters.

Here are a couple of lines from the film.

Morna Dabney, "Aven, honey, I'd hate to see you die young. I'd really hate it."

Keith Alexander, "I give you fair warning. I'm gonna keep on making love to you whether you marry him or not."