Cheap The Southerner (Video) (Zachary Scott, Betty Field) (Jean Renoir) Price

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Customer Reviews of The Southerner

Jean Renoir's film about a Southern family living on a farm
"The Southerner," directed by Jean Renoir in 1945 from George Sessions Perry's novel "Hold Autumn in Your Hand," is an interesting example of the pastoral films of post-War Hollywood. This film is one of those films honoring the indomitable spirit of man as it follows the Tucker family in their efforts to set up a self-sufficient farm in the South. San (Zachary Scott), Nona (Betty Field), their children and their spunky scene-stealing granny (Beluah Bondi) have to put up with poverty, weather, disease and even the hostility of their neighbors as everything goes wrong. If a storm is not wrecking their crops, then one of their neighbors sends a cow to eat their vegetable patch. Renoir was one of the first directors to do location shooting for non-Western films, having first gone to the Deep South for 1941's "Swamp Water." But whereas the locale of "The Southerner" is certainly realistic, the same came not be said for the actors. There is an inherent urban sophistication to Scott, so that it just does not seem right that he is out there catching a fish with his bare hands or offering up a hillbilly prayer to God. Renoir needed the same sort of earnest characterization of the great unwashed you find in John Ford's "The Grapes of Wrath." However, certainly this is an earnest effort from Renoir and he comes out slightly ahead on the overall balance sheet. Besides, Bunny Sunshine is in this film.

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A Southern family sets up a farm in this Jean Renoir film
"The Southerner," directed by Jean Renoir in 1945 from George Sessions Perry's novel "Hold Autumn in Your Hand," is an interesting example of the pastoral films of post-War Hollywood. The film is one of those films honorable the indomitable spirit of man as it follows the Tucker family in their efforts to set up a self-sufficient farm in the South. San (Zachary Scott), Nona (Betty Field), their children and their spunky granny (Beluah Bondi) have to put up with poverty, weather, disease and even the hostility of their neighbors as everything goes wrong. If a storm is not wrecking their crops, then one of their neighbors sends a cow to eat their vegetable patch. Renoir was one of the first directors to do location shooting for non-Western films, having first gone to the Deep South for 1941's "Swamp Water." But whereas the locale of "The Southerner" is certainly realistic, the same came not be said for the actors. There is an inherent urban sophistication to Scott, so that it just does not seem right that he is out there catching a fish with his bare hands or offering up a hillbilly prayer to God. Renoir needed the same sort of earnest characterization of the great unwashed you find in John Ford's "The Grapes of Wrath." However, certainly this is an earnest effort from Renoir and he comes out slightly ahead on the overall balance sheet. Besides, Bunny Sunshine is in this film.

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TOUCHING
A sincere film, real, poignant, believable, and excellently acted all around. It tells the story of the hardships lived by a poor family in the country. For sure in my top ten list! Unforgettable!