Carolina

"Carolina" is set about 40 years after the beginning of the US Civil War. Despite the South losing and their fortune being completely depleated, the Connelly family clings to the past and their former glory. But they have no money, no credit and no prospects of any of this changing for the better. So, when Will Connelly (Robert Young) falls for a Yankee tenant farmer, Joanna (Janet Gaynor), the family is in an uproar. Does the romance stand a chance?

Let's cut to the chase. The film is about an unpolitically correct as possible. While I hate the notion of enforced political correctness, the history teacher within me (yes, I used to teach history) balks at the film's ridiculous and offensive view of history and black America. In this film, the slaves never left the Connelly plantation because they LOVE life on the farm and adore their former masters! They are fiercely loyal...and even stop by to sing negro spirituals to entertain the Connellys. But it gets worse...Stepin Fetchit (the worst stereotypical act in Hollywood of the lazy black man) is there as well as the N-word. Don't say I didn't warn you. It certainly paints a crazy portrait of the South and idealizes their treatment of blacks...something that simply isn't historically accurate in the least!

So if you ignore the horrible history lesson, is there anything to like about this movie? Well, the two leads try hard and the romance is very nice...even if Robert Young sounds as much like a Southerner as Lassie! An enjoyable film in many ways...but also an incredibly distorted and ridiculous view of the Carolinas circa 1901.