The Cabin in the Cotton
Directed by Michael Curtiz
Written by Paul Green from a novel by Harry Harrison Kroll
1932/USA
First National Pictures (Warner Bros.)
First viewing/FilmStruc=
[box] Madge: I’d like to kiss you, but I just washed my hair.[/box]
Pre-Code shenanigans take second place to class conflict in the Deep South.
Sharecroppers, also known as “peckerwoods”, spend backbreaking hours picking cotton for the landowner. The whole family participates, down to the youngest children. At the end of each year, they are deeper in debt to the company store.
Sharecropper Tom Blake finds a way to send his eldest son Marvin (Richard Barthelmess) to school where he excels. When Tom dies, it looks sure that Marvin will need to go back to chopping cotton. However, Madge Norwood (Bette Davis) daughter of landowner Lane Norwood has a yen for Marvin and soon he is living with the Norwood’ and keeping their books.
Marvin is also expected to spy on the sharecroppers. who are suspected of stealing cotton. For their part, Marvin’s extended family, which includes some of the main culprits, wants his help in selling the cotton in the big city. Marvin’s final challenge comes when the sharecroppers burn down the company store and the ledgers therein. Marvin has a copy of the books and is really caught between a rock and a hard place. With Dorothy Jordan as the sharecropper who loves Marvin and a host of Warner Bros. character actors.
I’d heard of this mainly for the iconic line quoted above but its actually quite a good movie of the period. The screen lights up whenever Davis appears but Barthelmess has more to do and does it quite well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpJuu22RNwY
Clip
