Issue-oriented drama from Warner Brothers. Not quite up to their later Ripped-From-The-Headlines standard, but getting there. Richard Barthelmess, whose soft, gentlemanly style was falling out of favor, the son of a Southern tenant-farmer on a large cotton estate, has worked his way up to running the accounts & company store of overbearing owner Berton Churchill. Torn between what he owes his boss for his advancement and the loyalty he owes his own people, a pull mirrored in his longing for pretty farm gal Dorothy Jordan and sexy rich girl Bette Davis, it takes a crisis (or two or three) to knock him off the fence. Director Michael Curtiz can’t establish a solid, playable tone all the way thru, some details remain very studio-bound/Early Talkie, but much is already powerful filmmaking, visually striking, especially in a swamp hunt/lynching sequence. And listen up for some striking use of diegetic (screen sourced) music. Uncommonly interesting and unexpectedly fair-handed on the labor/management/owner front, with any 1932 technical gaucheries easy to overlook. Especially when Davis is on screen, making a sexy breakthrough with Southern accent and an all-time favorite line: ‘Ah’d love to kiss ya, but ah jes’ washed my hair.’
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Scripter Paul Green, with B’way plays on poor black So. Carolina tenant farmers (IN ABRAHAM’S BOSOM) and on poor white No. Carolina farmers (THE FIELD GOD) gets an unusual puff credit line noting his professorship at the University of North Carolina. Talk about bona fides!
SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: According to Davis, Barthelmess developed a scene stealing trick of doing no acting at all in ‘full’ or ‘medium’ shots; saving it all for his close ups. That way, the editor would have little choice but to use those shots whenever possible.
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