Interesting, if not entirely successful Gary Cooper pic brings the Industrial Revolution to turn-of-the-last-century Jim Crow South in the form of a newfangled cigarette rolling machine. For Coop, it’s personal revenge against the old-school tobacco barons who ran his dad out of business, and allows him to finally take possession of Patricia Neal, the rich daughter of Donald Crip’s snobby tobacco grower, while genteel hooker turned dignified investor Lauren Bacall waits for Coop to see who’s really on his side before success siphons all the humanity out of his soul, leaving nothing but resentment, greed & blind ambition. Technically strong (Henry Blanke; Michael Curtiz; Victor Young; Karl Freund/Producer; Director; Score; Camera), and with excellent support from Jack Carson & Donald Crisp, the film promises more than it delivers. A rare case of an M-G-M style project going awry @ Warners. Coop works hard at what must be the least sympathetic character of his career, but it’s more of a Spencer Tracy vehicle*; while Patricia Neal goes all Bette Davis with her rich, coddled, revenge-minded vixen.* Fun watching the rather conventional set-up (good ‘bad’ girl/bad ‘good girl/prodigal orphan son) start to fray halfway thru, but Ranald MacDougall’s script bites off more dramatic equivocation than it can chew. Still, definitely worth a look.
SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *Specifically, Neal’s like Bette Davis in CABIN IN THE COTTON/’32. And why not since Neal made her rep on B’way in ANOTHER PART OF THE FOREST, Lillian Hellman’s 1946 LITTLE FOXES prequel, where she played a younger version of Regina Hubbard, Bette Davis’s character in the 1941 film.
DOUBLE-BILL: *You can see Tracy take on this sort of thing, and at just about this time, in Elia Kazan’s All-Star M-G-M dud THE SEA OF GRASS/’47.
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