The Southerner is the fourth of the six films Renoir made during his stay in America, and of course is in American English and played by American actors. Sam Tucker (Zachary Scott), his wife Nona (Betty Field) and family move to a tenant farm in Texas after share-cropping: they almost give up when they see state of the farmhouse, but and determined to make a go of cotton farming.
Their difficulties are many: along with the constant hard work, they are beset with problems from the neighbouring farmer Henry Devers (J. Carrol Naish) and his strange nephew Finley (Norman Lloyd): Devers has had a hard time over the years and views any competition with resentment and jealousy. The Tuckers' son is also affected by malnutrition partly from lack of calcium: the general store owner Harmie (Percy Kilbride) helps out with this by providing a cow.
When Sam catches 'Lead Pencil', a catfish Devers has been trying to catch, and lies that Devers caught it, things are patched up neighbourhood-wise. But when Harmie marries Sam's mother (played by Blanche Yurka), they return to the farm to find all the cotton ruined in a huge rainstorm. Sam is ready to give up, but his family is ready to soldier on, so the farming battle continues.
The film at the time received mixed reception: Oscar nominations but criticism in the Deep South for its treatment of 'white trash', and hostile reception from the KKK.
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