The Cabin in the Cotton (1932)

Director:

Michael Curtiz

Writers:

Harry Harrison Kroll (novel)
Paul Green (screenplay)

Release Date:

15 October 1932 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

Heart-racked by soul-stirring emotions...position and wealth beckoning...A seductive daughter of the rich madly yielding in his arms...The call of his people and childhood sweetheart ringing in his ears...Would you make the same decision as BARTHELMESS

Plot:

A tenant farmer's son is caught in the middle of owner-tenant disputes when he falls for the plantation owner's seductive daughter.

Plot Keywords:

Education | Poverty | Tenant Farmer | Cotton | Sharecropper

Cast

Richard Barthelmess	...	Marvin Blake
Dorothy Jordan	...	Betty Wright
Bette Davis	...	Madge Norwood
Hardie Albright	...	Roland Neal
David Landau	...	Tom Blake
Berton Churchill	...	Lane Norwood
Dorothy Peterson	...	Lilly Blake
Russell Simpson	...	Uncle Joe
Tully Marshall	...	Slick
Henry B. Walthall	...	Eph Clinton
Edmund Breese	...	Holmes Scott
John Marston	...	Russell Carter
Erville Alderson	...	Sock Fisher
William Le Maire	...	Jake Fisher (as William LeMaire)
Clarence Muse	...	A Blind Negro

Runtime:

78 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

USA:Approved (PCA #2725-R, 29 September 1936 for re-release)

Company:

First National Pictures

Trivia:

Bette Davis said in an interview with Barbara Walters that "I'd like to kiss you but I just washed my hair" was her all-time favorite movie line.

Quotes:

Madge: Your head is full o' plans, isn't it, darlin', full o' plans.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Stardust: The Bette Davis Story (2006) (TV)

Soundtrack:

She'll Be Comin' 'Round the Mountain When She Comes

Bette Davis steals the show

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