The Southerner (1945)

Free Great Movies Review

  •  (2 out of 5 stars)

After Germany invaded France in 1940, French director Jean Renoir came to Hollywood where he directed six American films in the 1940s. While La Grande Illusion (1937) and The Rules of the Game (1939) are two of the greatest French films of all time, director Renoir seemed to be out of his element directing this film about farming in the American South. It's a painfully wholesome and old-fashioned movie about a poor Texas farmer struggling to make a living. Renoir was so focused on capturing the American everyman, that he neglected to craft a compelling story or characters. His leads Zachary Scott and Betty Field lack acting charisma, and their failure to generate drama was condemned as representing Southern people as dim-witted. It's also a bleak look at farming life where around every turn is another catastrophe that makes our hero want to give up. Viewers may want to give up on him too. While its depiction of rural and small-town life was viewed as admirable at the time, today it's conventional and dull.

(Summary from Wikipedia)

Copyright Info: This movie is in the public domain and is legally available for free on YouTube.