Tobacco Road (1941) on Netflix
Jeeter Lester is a sharecropper on Tobacco Road in Georgia, and the bank plans to take his land. He needs a loan to keep it, and Sister Bessie Rice has insurance money.
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- Netflix3.2/5
- IMDb6.3/102,820 votes
- Rotten TomatoesNot available
Plot summary
On Tobacco Road in Georgia, Jeeter Lester lives with Ada, his wife, and their children Dude and Ellie May. The family's ancestors were once wealthy planters, and the bank now plans to take the land over for more profitable farming. Capt. Tim Harmon, whose father used to press the Lesters to grow crops, gets the bank to consider leasing the place back to Jeeter for a hundred dollars a year, if Jeeter can raise a loan. The widow Sister Bessie Rice has just collected eight hundred dollars from a life insurance company, and Jeeter means to borrow from her. He also wants to see Ellie May married.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Tobacco Road (1941)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Tobacco Road was to be filmed on location in Georgia, but in November 1940 the studio moved production to closed sets inside the studio to head off controversy, and kept publicity to a minimum to prevent the film being banned before release.
- To play Dude Lester, William Tracy had to diet and lose teeth, and joked that it was a part "you can sink your teeth in, if you have your teeth."
- Henry Hull, who had portrayed the lead on Broadway, was sought from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to reprise it, but by October 1940 he was only under consideration, alongside Walter Brennan and Henry Fonda.
- RKO Pictures and Warner Bros. considered buying the screen rights, with RKO intending to cast Charles Laughton in the lead role, but the studios were discouraged from going ahead.
- John Ford said the film had "no dirt in the picture" and that the novel's "horrible details" were eliminated; the softening followed a November 1940 warning that many religious people might be offended.
- The studio worried the film would be censored, but in the end Tobacco Road was banned in only one country, Australia.
