Richard Barthelmess stars as the young son of a sharecropper who finds himself torn between his loyalty to other sharecroppers and to their landowner, for whom he has become a trusted employee. Barthelmess disagrees with the exploitation of the sharecroppers by the landowners, but he also disagrees with the sharecroppers' response of stealing and unrest. Complicating things for Barthelmess is the fact that he has fallen in love with the landowner's daughter, Bette Davis. Barthelmess spends the whole movie looking confused, no doubt trying to figure out how anyone is going to believe him playing a young man. He never seems to get a grasp of the character and he comes across as awkward, and at times, laughable. Davis acts circles around him, very appealing in an early role as the tempting Madge. She provides the film its only spark. The direction of Michael Curtiz in this early sound film is admirable, and with a better leading man and tightened script, this could have been a much more memorable film due to its socially significant theme. As it is, it's an interesting piece of early Thirties' cinema, containing one of the film world's famous bits of dialogue. But it could have been more than it is.

Directed by Michael Curtiz, this film focuses on the symbiotic relationship between southern planters and their tenant farmers or sharecroppers. It was, inevitably, a relationship fraught with conflict and was a social issue that this film sought, in some measure, albeit melodramatically, to address. It was an issue that would later be more eloquently addressed by the classic film "The Grapes of Wrath".

"Cabin in the Cotton" is representative in style of a cinematic effort that still showed the transition the film industry was making from silent films to talkies, as it has some of the stylized accouterments representative of a silent film. It begins with the written word from which the viewer gleans the context in which the movie is to be viewed. The leading male role, that of Marvin Blake, the sharecropper's son, is played by Richard Barthelmess, a noted silent film actor. Unfortunately, he plays it as if he were doing a silent film, down to the painted lips that he sports in some scenes, a la Ramon Navarro. Why he sports these painted lips in some scenes and not in others is somewhat puzzling. Moreover, his acting, while perhaps impressive in a silent film, is notably unimpressive in a talkie. He is clearly miscast as the sharecropper's son who rises above his station in life and becomes the love interest of the plantation owner's southern belle daughter, fetchingly played by Ms. Davis.

The story is simple. Sharecroppers are taken advantage of by the planter who keeps them as virtual slaves. Sharecroppers look to get back at the planter. Sharecroppers steal from the planter in an effort to balance the books, so to speak. The planter seeks redress for this. Marvin Blake, the sharecropper's son who got an education of sorts, is now the planter's right hand man. Caught in between the divergent interests of the competing groups, Blake is forced to come to a decision about what he is to do to reconcile the two groups, both of which are clearly getting out of hand in their efforts to win for their side.

Blake should have been portrayed by someone for whom the viewer would root. Unfortunately, Barthelmess does not cut it. He is, at times, laughable, at other times, contemptible and simpering in the role. He makes the viewer want to give him a swift kick in the can. He does not demonstrate the qualities of which leaders are made and that is a quality demanded of his role.

Bette Davis, on the other hand, is wonderful as Madge Norwood, the attractive daughter of the planter whose sharecroppers are bedeviling him. She is vampish, seductive, and beguiling, as the love interest with whom the hapless Blake is totally besotted. She plays Blake like a violin, and he falls for her like a puppy dog for its mistress. This, of course, breaks the heart of a sharecropper's daughter, who loves Blake wholeheartedly. To see who triumphs, watch this film. It is a must for all Davis fans.

The above quotation, contained in this little potboiler from 1932, was La Davis's very favourite line of all-time from her entire career in the movies! The role of Madge, the cankered young temptress gave Davis something to work with. Richard Barthelmess, an excellent actor from the silent era, was past his peak at forty-something - in 1932; he probably held very little interest for the notoriously difficult Hungarian director Michael Curtiz - Davis later wrote that Curtiz would refer to her as "A no-good sexless bum, a lousy , no good actress....... and words which are generally unprintable. Historically, a semi-important film (TCM certainly likes it!) because in it, Davis creates one of the great voyeuristic experiences the cinema has afforded us......Bette's voice, a call sign pitched between a taunt and a whine, resonates with trampish selfishness. A classic seduction has those Davis eyeballs prominently ogling poor Richard from under that famous bulging, shining forehead, her fingers clutching his hand as he nervously lights a cigarette for her, the flirtatious sag of her body against the shop counter, the breathy little ballad of WILLIE THE WEEPER (who had the dope habit and had it bad). Obviously a female in heat, Bette slips in "something more restful" and the erotic rustle of her waist-sash being untied before she rises into the sreen, bare-shouldered and presumably totally naked has left Barthelmess helpless! As Madge Norwood, a planter's spoiled child, Bette got to act. Davis presents a budding specimen af a Deep Southern nympho, stealthily seducing the conscience-bowed sharecropper's son (Barthelmess) who's employed by her Daddy..........Barthelmess was too old for his role and obviously unhappy and uncomfortable in his playing. In 1939, Davis would again be directed by the tyrannical Curtiz in her first Technicolor film - which hopefully will available again on video (AND SOON!) - THE PRIVATE LIVES OF ELIZABETH AND ESSEX based upon Maxwell Anderson's esteemed play ELIZABETH THE QUEEN. Curtiz had to eat humble pie this time; Davis, by now was also known as the "Queen of Hollywood"!! Ironic.

Bette Davis gets her first major vamp role in "The Cabin in the Cotton," adapted from the novel by Harry Harrison Kroll. This is the one where you utters that immortal line, "I'd like to kiss you, but I just washed m'hair." Marvin Blake (Richard Barhtelmess) is the son of a poor sharecropper who dreams ot educating himself and helping his neighbors lead a better life. After his father dies, Marvin is given a job at the general store by Lane Norwood (Berton Churchill), a wealthy planter. Norwood's daughter Madge (Davis) comes home from school and flirts with Marvin, eventually getting the poor boy to confess his love. Meanwhile, Marvin gets promoted to bookkeeper and quickly learns the planter has been cheating his tenants out of their fair share of the profits. But Norwood has been treating Marvin like a son and the planter wants to know which of the sharecroppers have been stealing cotten and plotting against him. When a neighboring planter is killed by a cotton thief, Norwood leads the lynch mob that hunts down the killer. The sharecroppers retailiate by burning down Norwood's store, destroy not only the evidence of his skimming profits but of their overdue accounts as well. Asked to lead the sharecroppers in their fight to get better conditions from the planters, Marvin demands the violence stop, and confronts Norwood with evidence of his crimes. If that was not enough of a problem, Marvin also has to choose between Madge and his childhood sweatheart, Betty WRight (Dorothy Jordan).

This 1932 Warners Brothers film is directed by Michael Curtiz, who went on to direct "The Adventures of Robin Hood" and "Yankee Doodle Dandy." Davis received her first really rave reviews for her role as the seductive little rich girl. Given what is to come, Madge is actually a relatively tame character for Davis to play; she is bad, but she is not that bad. "The Cabin in the Cotton" is representative of Hollywood's take on social issues during the Thirties, which is to say they manage to solve serious problems in a 79 minute film. Barthelmess, who has starred opposite Lillian Gish in the silent classic "Broken Blossoms," turns in an earnest performance which makes "The Cabin in the Sky" sort of "The Grapes of Wrath" of its day.

"Cabin in the Cotton" could have been a powerful screen story, but this adaptation from the novel left much on the cutting room floor. Davis is well-cast as a rich southern flirt who toys with the affections of the poor son of a share cropper Barthelmess (who works a the store owned by Davis's father). Davis is vivacious and luminous in her scenes which include singing "Willie the Weeper" This is the movie in which cotained Davis's all-time favorite line:"Yur'e cute!-A'hd luve ta kiss ya but I jes wash'd ma haya!"