Ameriatch
One of the best films i have seen
ShangLuda
Admirable film.
Scotty Burke
It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review
kidboots
Can it really be Bette Davis - earlier the same year she was a very mousey, nothing special "girl" in "Hell's House". Now blonded, sparkling and vivacious - Bette Davis has sex appeal.Even though it's main claim to fame is sultry Bette Davis and her "legendary" line "I'd like to kiss ya but I just washed ma hair" - this film is much more.It was one of Warner Brother's "social" dramas, focusing on the clashes between the wealthy planters and the sharecroppers (called peckerwoods). Richard Barthelmass plays Marvin Blake, a share cropper's son who aspires to higher things. Dorothy Peterson plays his mother. When his father dies from over work, Norwood, the planter (Berton Churchill) encourages Marvin to stay at school and later on gives him a job looking after the plantation accounts. The honesty and purity of Marvin's personality keep him in limbo. He feels he doesn't belong to any group. He wants his people to accept him but they are suspicious of his involvement with Norwood. Dorothy Jordan, a popular ingénue in the early 30s, plays Betty, the sharecropper girl who always believes in him. He, in turn, feels loyalty for Madge because he thinks she loves him but he is just a plaything for her.Although not as hard hitting as other Warner's social dramas, it improved in the last half - with an impassioned speech by veteran silent actor Henry B. Walthall as an old sharecropper trying to explain to Marvin what they are fighting for. In the court case at the end of the film Marvin gives an emotional speech about the planters and share croppers working together. Clarence Muse makes a few notable appearances as a blind singer.
drednm
Interesting film about the plight of planters vs. share croppers in 1930s South. Richard Barthelmess plays a share cropper's son who is good at school and is sponsored by a planter (Berton Churchill). Although the boy becomes a bookkeeper for him he 's caught between the two worlds and the two girls from each side of town: the planter's daughter (Bette Davis) and a share cropper's neighbor (Dorothy Jordan).As the war between the planters and croppers increases, Barthelmess is caught in a moral dilemma. He knows the croppers are stealing cotton and he knows they burned down the local mercantile (owned by the planter) because they think they've destroyed the the records. But Barthelmess has an extra set.The film is a little slow and maybe too old fashioned but the subject matter is interesting and of course the film features Davis' famous line, "I'd like to kiss ya, but I just washed my hair. Bye!" Aside from that the film offers Barthelmess in his last starring role and good performances by Churchill and Henry B. Walthall as a crippled cropper.Also co-stars David Landau, Virginia Hammond, Russell Simpson, Tully Marshall, Dorothy Peterson, Hardie Albright, and Clarence Muse.Worth a look
nycritic
Slim Summerville? I'd say nay... watch Bette Davis' performance as the daughter of a plantation owner as she tries to seduce Richard Barthelmess on three occasions and you will see the makings of an actress with preternatural control of her own self and body language. Going against the code that a woman should be submissive and demure, she utters her immortal line "Ah'd like to kiss ya, but Ah'd jes washed my hair. Good bye!" with a conscious wink in her eye, as if she knew what her effect was on Barthelmess. Later, she does a slow strip-tease mainly off-screen, fully aware of her effect and willing to carry it out, and later still she sits and lazily eats dinner with Richard Barthelmess, her eyes a little sleepy and parted lips suggesting so much. I can't see what could have prompted Davis to believe herself unworthy of Hollywood. An early performance with hints of what she'd do in later films playing women in control, teamed with Barthelmess who was on the way out and with this movie had his last major starring role, and a movie that while at the time might have hit audiences with its social commentary, now seems ancient and distant.
Karl Ericsson
This film was probably made possible through FDR:s "New Deal". It does proclaim a middle road between vulgar capitalism and vulgar communism and so does not take a totally firm side against the owners but it still beats anything made today and what is Reilly a beauty is how well the ideas put forth blend in with the story, which is a sure sign for any masterpiece, which this certainly is. You have to go to Germany and "Kuhle Wampe" to find something similar but that is more like a loosely constructed road-movie compared with this. Truly astonishing stuff. As for Bette Davies and her antics - those are completely secondary and were probably only put there to work as a smokescreen for the producers. Should be shown in every school.
