After seeing THE SOUTHERNER for the first time, I had a number of reactions:
(1) The title was a desperate marketing ploy by United Artists to find an audience for a film that must have been a severe marketing challenge. The film (and the novel, HOLD AUTUMN IN YOUR HAND, by George Sessions Perry, on which the movie was based) actually is set in Texas, which is not the same place as Alabama or North Carolina; but "THE SOUTHERNER" has a chauvinistic appeal that must have attracted some regional viewers.
(2) I recalled a critic's remark about a later legendary film (in an entirely different way), HEAVEN'S GATE -- to paraphrase: In Hollywood, the poor are more virtuous than the rich because they're more photogenic.
(3) The conclusion of the film is quite as artificial as the tacked-on ending of John Ford's THE GRAPES OF WRATH (1941), but without Ma Joad's conviction. Where is Jane Darwell when you need her?
(4) A couple of Hispanics (Texas, right?) but not a single African-American in this South? Somewhere, Jesse Helms is smiling.
THE SOUTHERNER was widely praised when it came out in 1945 (and continues to earn admirers) because it was so different from Hollywood's traditional portrayal of "the South" and played on the liberal, proletarian sympathies of certain audiences and critics. Hollywood had tried to address the plight of Southern cotton croppers before (Michael Curtiz's CABIN IN THE COTTON, 1932, and Ford's TOBACCO ROAD, 1941) but THE SOUTHERNER does so without drowning in CABIN'S sociological balance or Ford's forced humor. The earnestness of the film is a large part of its appeal.
The reputation of Jean Renoir also is responsible for the high marks this film receives. Renoir had made a "southern" film earlier -- SWAMP WATER, in 1941 -- and perhaps he found the region interesting. No doubt he found the human drama of the Tucker family a fitting subject, but the results don't show any special insight to time and place. (Renoir apparently rewrote Hugo Butler's original script, from Perry's novel, and two Southern-born writers, William Faulkner and Nunnally Johnson, apparently had some input into the screenplay as well.) My biggest problem with the film is simply that the people are too pretty and the story too pat. I don't know that Joel McCrea or any Hollywood leading man of that era would have been more appropriate than Zachary Scott in the role of Sam Tucker, but Scott and the entire cast are just not convincing. One can't get over the impression that these are well-meaning actors rather than real people. J. Carrol Naish, usually a very convincing actor, comes closest to nailing his character, but playing the S.O.B. is usually easier than portraying the S.O.E. (Salt Of the Earth). Beulah Bondi and Norman Lloyd are wasted caricatures.
In the end, THE SOUTHERNER fails to convince because the filmmakers failed to deal with the real dilemma of the family whose cotton crop has been destroyed by a flood. I wanted to know how these people were going to survive the loss of a year's hard work. These people are in real trouble! Instead, we get an inspirational "keep on keepin' on" message that mutes the tragedy of this family's loss. It's rather insulting, really, to both the audience and to the real croppers who had to deal with such a precarious existence, year in and year out.
I don't know that there's ever been a film that's effectively dealt with this aspect of American life and culture, but if you really want to know about the people that THE SOUTHERNER purports to portray, make the time to read James Agee's classic rumination, LET US NOW PRAISE FAMOUS MEN, which includes the moving photographs by Walker Evans.
ADDENDUM: June 19, 2009: I've recently read HOLD AUTUMN IN YOUR HAND, on which THE SOUTHERNER is based, and the book only reinforces my view that the film is Hollywood proletarian schmaltz -- well-meaning, but a slick and sanitized portrayal of this culture. The book itself ends a bit abruptly, with a "happy" ending that's only a little less contrived than the film's. If you are interested in this aspect of American culture, however, it's a decent and quick read; and there's a better movie to be made from HOLD AUTUMN IN YOUR HAND.
(1) The title was a desperate marketing ploy by United Artists to find an audience for a film that must have been a severe marketing challenge. The film (and the novel, HOLD AUTUMN IN YOUR HAND, by George Sessions Perry, on which the movie was based) actually is set in Texas, which is not the same place as Alabama or North Carolina; but "THE SOUTHERNER" has a chauvinistic appeal that must have attracted some regional viewers.
(2) I recalled a critic's remark about a later legendary film (in an entirely different way), HEAVEN'S GATE -- to paraphrase: In Hollywood, the poor are more virtuous than the rich because they're more photogenic.
(3) The conclusion of the film is quite as artificial as the tacked-on ending of John Ford's THE GRAPES OF WRATH (1941), but without Ma Joad's conviction. Where is Jane Darwell when you need her?
(4) A couple of Hispanics (Texas, right?) but not a single African-American in this South? Somewhere, Jesse Helms is smiling.
THE SOUTHERNER was widely praised when it came out in 1945 (and continues to earn admirers) because it was so different from Hollywood's traditional portrayal of "the South" and played on the liberal, proletarian sympathies of certain audiences and critics. Hollywood had tried to address the plight of Southern cotton croppers before (Michael Curtiz's CABIN IN THE COTTON, 1932, and Ford's TOBACCO ROAD, 1941) but THE SOUTHERNER does so without drowning in CABIN'S sociological balance or Ford's forced humor. The earnestness of the film is a large part of its appeal.
The reputation of Jean Renoir also is responsible for the high marks this film receives. Renoir had made a "southern" film earlier -- SWAMP WATER, in 1941 -- and perhaps he found the region interesting. No doubt he found the human drama of the Tucker family a fitting subject, but the results don't show any special insight to time and place. (Renoir apparently rewrote Hugo Butler's original script, from Perry's novel, and two Southern-born writers, William Faulkner and Nunnally Johnson, apparently had some input into the screenplay as well.) My biggest problem with the film is simply that the people are too pretty and the story too pat. I don't know that Joel McCrea or any Hollywood leading man of that era would have been more appropriate than Zachary Scott in the role of Sam Tucker, but Scott and the entire cast are just not convincing. One can't get over the impression that these are well-meaning actors rather than real people. J. Carrol Naish, usually a very convincing actor, comes closest to nailing his character, but playing the S.O.B. is usually easier than portraying the S.O.E. (Salt Of the Earth). Beulah Bondi and Norman Lloyd are wasted caricatures.
In the end, THE SOUTHERNER fails to convince because the filmmakers failed to deal with the real dilemma of the family whose cotton crop has been destroyed by a flood. I wanted to know how these people were going to survive the loss of a year's hard work. These people are in real trouble! Instead, we get an inspirational "keep on keepin' on" message that mutes the tragedy of this family's loss. It's rather insulting, really, to both the audience and to the real croppers who had to deal with such a precarious existence, year in and year out.
I don't know that there's ever been a film that's effectively dealt with this aspect of American life and culture, but if you really want to know about the people that THE SOUTHERNER purports to portray, make the time to read James Agee's classic rumination, LET US NOW PRAISE FAMOUS MEN, which includes the moving photographs by Walker Evans.
ADDENDUM: June 19, 2009: I've recently read HOLD AUTUMN IN YOUR HAND, on which THE SOUTHERNER is based, and the book only reinforces my view that the film is Hollywood proletarian schmaltz -- well-meaning, but a slick and sanitized portrayal of this culture. The book itself ends a bit abruptly, with a "happy" ending that's only a little less contrived than the film's. If you are interested in this aspect of American culture, however, it's a decent and quick read; and there's a better movie to be made from HOLD AUTUMN IN YOUR HAND.