The Southerner (film)

The Southerner
File:Southerner poster.jpg Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Jean Renoir
Produced by	Robert Hakim David L. Loew
Screenplay by	Hugo Butler Jean Renoir William Faulkner Nunnally Johnson
Based on	Hold Autumn in Your Hand 1941 novel by George Sessions Perry
Starring	Zachary Scott Betty Field J. Carrol Naish
Music by	Werner Janssen
Cinematography	Lucien N. Andriot
Edited by	Gregg C. Tallas
Distributed by	United Artists
Release dates	April 30, 1945 (1945-04-30)
Running time	92 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

The Southerner is a 1945 American film directed by Jean Renoir, based on the 1941 novel Hold Autumn in Your Hand by George Sessions Perry. The film received Oscar nominations for Best Director, Original Music Score and Sound. Renoir was named Best Director by the National Board of Review, which also named the film the third best of 1945.

Future director Robert Aldrich was an assistant director on this film.

Filming location for flood is below the site of where Millerton Lake is located today. The flood was created by releases from the then recently completed Friant Dam.

Plot

Sam Tucker (Zachary Scott) is a cotton picker in Texas who decides to start his own farm. He and wife Nona (Betty Field), Granny (Beulah Bondi) and children Jot and Daisy set out with nothing but two mules and a bit of seed.

The land they lease has no working well, so neighbor Henry Devers (J. Carrol Naish) reluctantly lets the Tuckers share his water supply. They nearly starve and freeze during a hard winter. Come spring, the child Jot falls ill with "Spring Sickness" and desperately needs milk and vegetables to survive, but general store owner Harmie (Percy Kilbride) refuses the Tuckers credit.

Sam's friend Tim (Charles Kemper) offers to help find him a city job in a factory. Sam remains determined to make the farm work, and Harmie answers the family's prayers with the gift of a cow. Cotton blooms and a vegetable garden is planted. The bitter Devers and his nephew Finley (Norman Lloyd) conspire to ruin the Tuckers, though, because Devers wants their land.

After a fight, Devers comes armed with a gun, only to find Sam about to catch a catfish that Devers has been after for years. In return for the fish and bragging rights that he caught it, he agrees to leave Sam's family alone. Harmie (Percy Kilbride) ends up marrying Sam's mother and life seems fruitful at last, only to have a terrible thunderstorm ruin their crop and ravage the Tuckers' home. They must start over once more.

Copyright

The film is in the public domain.

Cast

• Zachary Scott as Sam Tucker
• Betty Field as Nona Tucker
• J. Carrol Naish as Devers
• Beulah Bondi as Granny Tucker
• Percy Kilbride as Harmie
• Charles Kemper as Tim
• Blanche Yurka as Mama Tucker
• Norman Lloyd as Finlay
• Estelle Taylor as Lizzie
• Paul Harvey as Ruston
• Noreen Nash as Becky Devers
• Jack Norworth as Dr. White
• Nestor Paiva as Bartender
• Paul E. Burns as Uncle Pete Tucker
• Jay Gilpin as Jot Tucker
• Jean Vanderwilt as Daisy Tucker

Critical reception

Variety magazine gave the film a favorable review and wrote, "The Southerner creates too little hope for a solution to the difficulties of farm workers who constantly look forward to the day when they can settle forever their existence of poverty with a long-sought harvest - a harvest that invariably never comes ... Zachary Scott and Betty Field give fine performances, as do Beulah Bondi, the grandmother, Percy Kilbride, Charles Kemper and J. Carrol Naish.

Bosley Crowther, the film critic of the New York Times, liked the film and wrote, "The Southerner may not be an "entertainment" in the rigid Hollywood sense and it may have some flaws, but it is, nevertheless, a rich, unusual and sensitive delineation of a segment of the American scene well worth filming and seeing."

Awards

Wins

• National Board of Review: NBR Award, Best Director, Jean Renoir; 1945.

Nominations

• Academy Awards: Oscar, Best Director, Jean Renoir; Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture, Werner Janssen; Best Sound, Recording Jack Whitney (Sound Services Inc); 1946.

External links

• The Southerner at IMDb
• The Southerner at the TCM Movie Database
• The Southerner at AllMovie
• The Southerner at the American Film Institute Catalog
• The Southerner is available for free download at the Internet Archive