Tobacco Road

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.

Tobacco Road as was written by Erskine Caldwell and dramatized on Broadway for 8 years was brought to the screen by 20th Century Fox in a considerably altered state. It was thought of probably by Darryl Zanuck as a great property for John Ford seeing what he did with The Grapes Of Wrath.

The Grapes Of Wrath by John Steinbeck is a great piece of social commentary, an immortal work whether in print or on the big or small screen. Ford kept the spirit of Steinbeck's work completely intact and got a well deserved Best Director Oscar. In this one because Caldwell's Jeeters are not quite as noble as the Joads of The Grapes Of Wrath, they're not prototype rural proletarians. The changes took a lot of the drama and commentary and left the film not too far above the Weaver Family films and Ma and Pa Kettle.

Charley Grapewin and Bessie Patterson are Mr.&Mrs. Jeeter Lester and Jeeter is a guy determined to get by doing as little as possible. The whole family has his spirit. He's married most of his children off. One of the daughters in serious trouble of being an old maid at 23 and that was Gene Tierney if you can believe that. Her character in the book and play has a cleft palate and you can understand why she's not married off. Here she's just gorgeous Gene Tierney and a crucial element is missing.

There's another daughter Pearl whom we never see, but who's married to the loutish Ward Bond. She keeps running off and Bond just doesn't get it. Here he's just rustic lout, I suspect that the 13 year old Pearl figures she can do a whole lot better. That one I'm sure the Code was breathing hot and heavy over 20th Century Fox.

There's another physically deformed character and that's Marjorie Rambeau who has in the book a nose like a pig's snout. Grapewin palms off his 16 year old son as a new husband for Rambeau to get his hands on the insurance money her old husband left her. William Tracy as the kid who's no prize figures she's experienced and eager even if she's a psalm singer which she is.

The rough house comedy that typifies many a Ford film is funny, but hardly in the spirit of what Caldwell was writing. In the end I have to say that the film is not good John Ford, though he's done worse.

When John Ford filmed "Tobacco Road" in 1941 the play was still running on Broadway. It opened in 1933 and even today only "Life with Father" has had a longer run for a non-musical production. It was based on Erskine Caldwell's risque novel about dirt-poor Southern farmers and after his success with "The Grapes of Wrath" Ford might have seemed like a fairly obvious choice for the film version but Caldwell was not Steinbeck and this was no "Grapes of Wrath".

It's tolerable enough but Charley Grapewin's old codger Jeeter, a supporting character now given centre screen, gets on your nerves very quickly. In fact, everyone in this picture gets on your nerves very quickly, (they are all portrayed as greedy imbeciles). William Tracy is terrible as the son and a youthful Gene Tierney, (it was only her second film), is totally miscast as sex-pot Ellie May. If Marjorie Rambeau is a little less grating as Sister Bessie it's perhaps because she, at least, is trying to underplay her part and only the great Elizabeth Patterson comes out of this with any dignity. In other words, it's certainly nobody's finest hour, (except perhaps cinematographer Arthur Miller), and Ford's least of all. The only real surprise about it is how it was ever a hit in the first place.

Director John Ford was certainly an odd duck; the stories he was attracted to ran the gamut from "The Searchers" to "The Quiet Man" to this one, a head-scratcher of a tragicomedy based on Erskine Caldwell's book and Jack Kirkland's popular stage-adaptation. Eccentric Georgia farm family is threatened with poverty when the bank forecloses on their land, leading patriarch Jeeter to use his wiles in hopes of raising $100 for a year's worth of rent. Movie swings wildly from hick-slapstick to poignant drama; however, once you've had a chance to get attuned to Ford's rhythm, it's a pretty terrific ride. Charley Grapewin gives an Oscar-caliber performance (he wasn't even nominated!), and it's fun to see Gene Tierney and Dana Andrews looking very youthful three years before "Laura". Good show! *** from ****

This movie is quite popular in certain circles but I guess I'm just not the biggest fan of John Ford's his straight-forward drama's.

Even though this movie is a comedy it still is a movie that is driven by its drama, characters and emotions. But problem is, I just wasn't very taken by any of its drama, characters or emotions. The entire movie and the way it plays out with its story, dialog and characters, feels very stagy. No wonder, since it also actually got based on a popular stage play by Jack Kirkland. But in my opinion a stage-play rarely translates well on to the silver-screen.

I can't really say that this is an horrible movie to watch, since it also made me laugh a couple of times and it does has its moments but overall the movie feels far too distant and stagy and besides starts to annoy after a while.

The movie features a family of hillbillies, who are all extreme stereotypes and do some beyond stupid and crazy things, that will just never happen in real life. It's also reason why the movie feels really distant and so do all of the characters and their emotions.

I could take Charley Grapewin's hillbilly performance for half an hour or so but after that I soon became tired of it. I have seen him before in several movies and it seems that he made his career out of playing this sort of clueless hillbilly characters. His performance and especially accent always sort of annoyed me but not bad enough to make me hate him, since he was also always playing more supporting type of roles, rather than the main character. In this movie however he is the main character, so no big surprise that I got annoyed by him pretty fast.

A John Ford you can really easily do without.

6/10

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