Tobacco Road (1941)

Information from IMDb

Plot Summary
Shiftless Jeeter Lester and his family of hillbilly stereotypes live in a rural backwater where their ancestors were once wealthy planters. Their slapstick existence is threatened by a bank's plans to take over the land for more profitable farming; subplots involve the affairs and marriages of son Dude and daughter Ellie May.
Written by Rod Crawford

Full Cast
Charley Grapewin ... Jeeter Lester
Marjorie Rambeau ... Sister Bessie Rice
Gene Tierney ... Ellie May Lester
William Tracy ... Dude Lester
Elizabeth Patterson ... Ada Lester
Dana Andrews ... Capt. Tim Harmon
Slim Summerville ... Henry Peabody
Ward Bond ... Lov Bensey
Grant Mitchell ... George Payne
Zeffie Tilbury ... Grandma Lester
Russell Simpson ... Chief of Police
Spencer Charters ... County Clerk
Irving Bacon ... Teller
Harry Tyler ... Auto Dealer
Charles Halton ... Mayor
George Chandler ... Clerk
Robert Shaw ... Hillbilly
Charles Trowbridge ... Rector (scenes deleted)
Charles Waldron ... Mr. Lester (scenes deleted)
Dorothy Adams ... Payne's Secretary (uncredited)
Erville Alderson ... Driver of Car Almost Hit by Dude Lester (uncredited)
Luke Cosgrave ... Undetermined Role (uncredited)
Francis Ford ... Vagabond on Road (uncredited)
David Hughes ... Coroner (uncredited)
Mae Marsh ... County Clerk's Assistant (uncredited)
John 'Skins' Miller ... Auto Dealer's Mechanic (uncredited)
Jack Pennick ... Deputy Sheriff (uncredited)

Writing Credits
Erskine Caldwell (novel)
Jack Kirkland (play)
Nunnally Johnson (screenplay)

Original Music
David Buttolph

Cinematography
Arthur C. Miller

Trivia
The movie was banned in Australia for unspecified reasons, but generally had few censorship problems.

The Broadway play by Jack Kirkland based on Erskine Caldwell's novel opened 4 December 1933 and set a record for longevity on Broadway when it closed on 31 May 1941 after 3,281 performances. It was revived on Broadway twice in the next two years, bring its total running time there to nearly ten years (1933-1943). Opened at the Theatre Masque and then moved to the 48th Street Theatre followed by the Forrest Theatre for the original production. The play was revived in 1942, 1943 and 1950. The original Broadway production is the sixteenth longest running show ever.

The early-1941 Ford Super De Luxe Convertible Club Coupe, driven by Harvey Parry, survived its ordeal. During filming it had been crashed into a 100-year-old sycamore tree, then backed out of the debris and driven fast to jump over a 20-foot stream (with the aid of a ramp), and thereafter smashed through several fences, sideswiped a two-ton truck (forcing the truck off the road), rammed through a tool shed (cut from final release), jumped a curb, splintered a park bench, rammed a station wagon, ran into two other trees and skidded until finally overturning. Following this, the car was set right by the crew and driven back to the studio by Parry. A studio employee, Arthur Webb, purchased the badly-damaged convertible from 20th Century-Fox and, with his brother Don, commenced to repair it with hundreds of hours of personal labor and $125 in new parts from a Beverly Hills dealership.

Goofs
The morning following a torrential rain storm, dirt roads are absolutely dry.

When Dude angrily pushes Jeter out of the way from his new car, the hood is up. When he drives away, the hood is down

Memorable Quotes

Filming Locations
Encino, Los Angeles, California, USA (poor farm sequence)
Sherwood Forest, California, USA

Tobacco Road is a 1941 film directed by John Ford starring
Charley Grapewin, Marjorie Rambeau, Gene Tierney, William Tracy and Dana Andrews.
It was based on the novel of the same name by Erskine Caldwell,
but the plot was rewritten for the film.
Look out for a few of the emerging John Ford Stock Company,
Ward Bond, Mae Marsh, Jack Pennick, Ford's brother Francis Ford
Also look out for young Robert Shaw

User Review

Quote

A Dated Dud
7 March 2010 | by Hunters_Souffle (New Jersey)
A family of backwood idiots in South Carolina are evicted from their property by the bank, and do very little to help themselves. Soon the moronic son is married to the local religious zealot and they buy a car and drive around reeking havoc, crashing into almost everything and abusing the car like it's a toy. The patriarch of the family wants to get a loan from the bank so he can plant some crops again, but he's too lazy and shiftless to actually do anything. There's a bunch of weird slapstick and overacting that could put post-Scarface Pacino to shame, mixed with awful maudlin scenes of desperation.

This kind of film is typical of that era in American history, where rich, 'enlightened' people gathered to laugh at those less fortunate, be it blacks, Latinos or hicks, in movies filled with stereotypes and cruelty. It's a dated dud that is better off forgotten.