Southern Springtucky

After beholding the Bohemianism I struggled to bring to Springfield – thriving – I will create the Old Ways of Springfield. Hell’s Half Acre comes to mind. Instead of the title Dixiecrats, I will use my word……..Jesuscrats!

Note the beautiful daughter has got her eye on the New Neighbor. Being Jesuscrats everyone pretends they don’t know what this will lead to, and, what’s on the girls mind. I bet you her scheming gets her what she wants. Women, want what they want. Get in her way, and she will make your life miserable. That’s for sure!

John Presco 007

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Southerner_(film)

Regional controversy[edit]

The release of The Southerner in 1945 provoked intense negative reactions in various locations throughout the southern United States. In spite of Sam Tucker’s portrayal as an honest, hard-working, highly devoted family man in the film, some people in the South strongly objected to The Southerner due to what they viewed as the film’s “sordid depiction of life in the southern states.”^[7] The film was even banned from being shown in Tennessee by Lloyd T. Binford, who for nearly three decades served as head of the Memphis Board of Censors and whose influence in that position extended to review boards and movie theaters across that state. Outside of Tennessee, Binford by the 1940s had already established a reputation in Hollywood and nationally as “the toughest censor in America”.^[20] Disgusted by The Southerner, he condemned the film as a “slur against Southern farmers” and for its characters being portrayed as nothing more than “‘common, lowdown, ignorant white trash‘”.^[1][21] The Ku Klux Klan also condemned Renoir’s film and advocated boycotting it at theaters elsewhere in the South.^[7][22] Yet, condemnation of The Southerner was by no means universal in the region. The United Daughters of the Confederacy was one of its supporters. The organization endorsed the film and complimented how its lead characters exemplified the South’s best attributes of “‘courage, stout-heartedness and love of our land’”.^[23]

The regionalized title of The Southerner contributed to the film’s controversy, a title that was being criticized by reviewers and influential movie promoters well before the film started to reach theaters in August 1945.^[24] The film-industry trade magazine Boxoffice, in its issue of May 5, 1945, cautioned theater owners that although The Southerner was an “outstanding picture”, it was hampered by “an inept title” and by “a cast of questionable drawing power.”^[24] One of the alternate titles considered for The Southerner by its producers and its distributor United Artists was The Tuckers of Texas.^[25][26] If the film had been released under that personalized, more geographically specific title, any objections to it in the South would have likely been far less intense.

Theater promotion for The Southerner in 1945[edit]

In the 1940s the film industry’s weekly trade magazine Boxoffice provided foreign and domestic news of special interest to movie theater operators, as well as advertisements for theater equipment and furnishings. It also provided details about the content, casting, production, and distribution of Hollywood films, along with movie reviews and reports about the public’s response to releases in every region of the United States. Boxoffice issues also had a “Showmandizer Section” that gave “exploitips” to theater owners on how to promote each coming attraction and what publicity tactics they could use locally to draw more ticket-buyers to their venues.^[27] With regard to promoting The Southerner in 1945, the magazine furnished a card-sized reference to theater owners that contained the following “Selling Angles” for the film:

Obtain bookstore tieups on George Session[s] Perry’s novel “Hold Autumn in Your Hand,” from which the picture was adapted. Get cooperation of 4H Clubs, the Grange and similar organizations in endorsing and publicizing this film. Window hookups with farm supply stores and feed shops—with live exhibits if possible, such as baby chicks, suckling pigs, etc.—should prove advantageous. Play up angling [fishing] angle: offer ticket prizes for largest fish caught, or biggest whopper [exaggerated fishing story] told.^[28]

The recommended “angle” offered by Boxoffice to attract even fishing enthusiasts to The Southerner relates to scenes in the film involving a catfish so large that it has “chin whiskers like lead pencils”. Later in the story, when Sam Tucker actually catches “Lead Pencil”, its huge size proves that Finley’s earlier description or suspected “whopper” about the fish was no exaggeration. Boxoffice also gave theater owners “catchlines” or promotional phrases to use on their marquees and to send to newspapers and local radio stations to publicize The Southerner. In addition to “There Were Two Loves in His [Sam Tucker’s] Life—His Family and His Farm”, one other catchline given by Boxoffice to exploit the fishing angle, though misleading, was “Things Went From Bad to Pieces . . . Until Fisherman’s Luck Changed an Enemy Into a Friend”.^[28]