Tobacco Road-1941-John Ford-Stars amongst others Dana Andrews-Gene Tierney

Erskine Caldwell's once-scandalous novel Tobacco Road resulted in an equally steamy stage play by Jack Kirkland, which became one of the longest-running productions in Broadway history. This story of indigence and amorality amongst inbred "poor whites" (based on people Caldwell had known while growing up in Georgia) had to be heavily expurgated for movie consumption, put there was plenty of comedy and colorful characterizations to suit the purposes of director John Ford. Charley Grapewin stars as Jeeter Lester, shiftless patriarch of a large backwoods clan. The Lesters are about to be thrown off their land for nonpayment of rent, but anyone who tries to help them--or to alter their lifestyle--is chased away by the poverty-stricken but intensely proud Jeeter. Tobacco Road succeeded on the basis of its title alone, even though no one expected the film to be anywhere near as earthy as the stage version (it would have been impossible under prevailing censorship to include the play's famous opening scene, in which the family watches intently while a teenage girl masturbates!)


Ford's next film but one after The Grapes of Wrath, obviously intended by Fox as a follow-up in the Oscar-winning social conscience stakes, was generally castigated as a crude, stagy mockery, derived at one or two censorship removes from the play based on Erskine Caldwell's bawdily earthy novel. In retrospect, however, it emerges as a fascinatingly subversive piece, undermining the starry-eyed humanism of the earlier film's 'We are the people' view. Instead of Steinbeck's Joads of Oklahoma, stubbornly maintaining their faith in the American Dream even in the depths of misery, we get the Lesters of Georgia, poor white trash perfectly content to wallow fecklessly in their mire of animal sexuality (when young) or tranquil sloth (when old age takes over). Beautifully realised by Ford, not unlike Kazan's Baby Doll in its blackly comic blend of dark sexuality and overheated melodrama, Tobacco Road is often very funny, sometimes deeply moving, and always provocative in its acknowledgment of an alternative to 'the American way of life'

Cast:

Charles Grapewin - Jeeter Lester
Marjorie Rambeau - Sister Bessie
Gene Tierney - Ellie May Lester
William Tracy - Dude Lester
Elizabeth Patterson - Ada Lester
Dana Andrews - Dr. Tim
George "Slim" Summerville - Henry Peabody
Ward Bond - Lov Bensey
Grant Mitchell - George Payne
Zeffie Tilbury - Grandma Lester
Russell Simpson - Sheriff
Spencer Charters - Employee
Irving Bacon - Teller
Harry Tyler - Auto Salesman
Charles Halton - Mayor
George Chandler - Employee
Dorothy Adams - Payne's secretary
Francis Ford - Vagabond
Mae Marsh - Woman
John Miller - Garage Attendant
Jack Pennick - Deputy sheriff