The story of Zachary Scott and his family -- wife Betty Field, two young kids, and ornery Grandma -- who start with nothing and try to make a living growing cotton on a patch of Texas prairie.
One might expect this to be a kind of rerun of 1940's "The Grapes of Wrath" but it isn't. "Grapes" was an object lesson in Marxism's transition from "false consciousness" to "class consciousness," except for Ma's sell-out speech about "the people that live" at the end. I'm not objecting to the Marxism, just pointing it out.
"The Southerner" doesn't pit the poor and exploited against the rich. Scott's family is really dirt poor, and their neighbors are a nasty family, but the antagonist here is not Management but force majeur. Scott has a corny speech in the midst of his struggling cotton patch in which he talks to the Man Upstairs and asks what's up. It's a reasonable question in context.
Happily, Scott's family is not straight out of Walt Disneyland. Grandma is a whining, selfish pain in the neck who imparts dumb hick medical advice. Betty Field is more in the mold of the supportive wife, while the two kids are there mainly to provide a focus for worry.
This poverty looks real. The people that work in the fields really look dirty. Everybody looks dirty. One kid get pellagra, the result of a lack of niacine from vegetables and fruits. The reason he gets it is that, during their first winter, the family simply has nothing to eat but flour, dried corn, and whatever "varmits" Scott and his dog can manage to bring home. It's horrifying to see how happy they are when Scott brings home a possum. You have to be pretty badly off to eat a marsupial.
The plot follows a familiar trajectory, hope followed by disappointment, impending triumph blighted by disaster. But the acting is pretty good. None of the leads had a distinguished career but they're convincing enough here. The script gives us some neat character studies too, including J. Carrol Naish as the embittered and jealous neighbor with the nasty son and the generous daughter. The last scene involves the rescue of the family cow (they finally got one) from a flooded river and is well executed. And the director, Jean Renoir, stages one fist fight and two comic episodes of violence in unexpected ways. Not brutal, just unexpected.
The ending, as you might expect, has everyone bravely putting their shoulders back against the wheel, their faces bright with hope -- even Grandma's.
One might expect this to be a kind of rerun of 1940's "The Grapes of Wrath" but it isn't. "Grapes" was an object lesson in Marxism's transition from "false consciousness" to "class consciousness," except for Ma's sell-out speech about "the people that live" at the end. I'm not objecting to the Marxism, just pointing it out.
"The Southerner" doesn't pit the poor and exploited against the rich. Scott's family is really dirt poor, and their neighbors are a nasty family, but the antagonist here is not Management but force majeur. Scott has a corny speech in the midst of his struggling cotton patch in which he talks to the Man Upstairs and asks what's up. It's a reasonable question in context.
Happily, Scott's family is not straight out of Walt Disneyland. Grandma is a whining, selfish pain in the neck who imparts dumb hick medical advice. Betty Field is more in the mold of the supportive wife, while the two kids are there mainly to provide a focus for worry.
This poverty looks real. The people that work in the fields really look dirty. Everybody looks dirty. One kid get pellagra, the result of a lack of niacine from vegetables and fruits. The reason he gets it is that, during their first winter, the family simply has nothing to eat but flour, dried corn, and whatever "varmits" Scott and his dog can manage to bring home. It's horrifying to see how happy they are when Scott brings home a possum. You have to be pretty badly off to eat a marsupial.
The plot follows a familiar trajectory, hope followed by disappointment, impending triumph blighted by disaster. But the acting is pretty good. None of the leads had a distinguished career but they're convincing enough here. The script gives us some neat character studies too, including J. Carrol Naish as the embittered and jealous neighbor with the nasty son and the generous daughter. The last scene involves the rescue of the family cow (they finally got one) from a flooded river and is well executed. And the director, Jean Renoir, stages one fist fight and two comic episodes of violence in unexpected ways. Not brutal, just unexpected.
The ending, as you might expect, has everyone bravely putting their shoulders back against the wheel, their faces bright with hope -- even Grandma's.