The Cabin in the Cotton *** (1932, Richard Barthelmess, Bette Davis, Dorothy Jordan) – Classic Movie Review 2730

Director Michael Curtiz’s 1932 drama stars the young Bette Davis as the minx Southern belle Madge who comes near to ruining nice sharecropper Marvin (Richard Barthelmess), but not before she utters, ‘Ah’d laak to kiss yo, but ah jus’ washed mah hayuh’ [‘I’d like to kiss you, but I just washed my hair’ ].

Tenant farmer sharecropper Tom Blake (David Landau)’s son Marvin (Barthelmess) is trying to help his community overcome poverty and ignorance. But while working in the general store he learns that the plantation owner has been cheating his tenants. Though he falls for the plantation owner’s seductive daughter, Madge (Davis), he sides with the tenants to expose the planters and their cheating.

The movie was probably only ever of a moderate quality and is now also wildly dated, but blonde Bette, playing broadly, still fascinates. It’s her first casting as a conniving vixen, a part she played on and off for the rest of her career.

Director Curtiz didn’t want Bette Davis to be cast in his movie, but Warner Bros production manager Darryl F Zanuck overruled him, and it worked out, so Davis and Curtiz went on to make five more films together.

Alas for all Davis’s fascinating acting, Barthelmess plays his character like a plank of wood in a style of acting even more faded than the movie. For all that, The Cabin in the Cotton is still very watchable, tremendously so when Davis is on screen.

Also in the cast are Dorothy Jordan, David Landau, Tully Marshall, Henry B Walthall, Hardie Albright, Berton Churchill, Clarence Muse, Edmund Breese, Dorothy Peterson, Walter Perchal and William LeMaire.

Davis said in an interview with Barbara Walters that ‘I’d like to kiss you, but I just washed my hair’ was her own all-time favourite movie line. It’s a classic line, though maybe not quite as good as Margo Channing’s ‘Fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy night!’ in All About Eve, though without it, The Cabin in the Cotton might well be forgotten today. It’s weird how one line of dialogue can dominate a movie and help to ensure its immortality.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2730

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