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Tap Roots
Set at the beginning of the Civil War, Tap Roots is all about a county in Mississippi which chooses to secede from the state rather than enter the conflict. The county is protected from the Confederacy by an abolitionist and a Native American gentleman. The abolitionist's daughter is courted by a powerful newspaper publisher when her fiance, a confederate officer, elopes with the girl's sister. The daughter at first resists the publisher's attentions, but turns to him for aid when her ex-fiance plans to capture the seceding county on behalf of the South.
Release : | 1948 |
Rating : | 6.5 |
Studio : | Walter Wanger Productions, Universal International Pictures, |
Crew : | Art Direction, Production Design, |
Cast : | Van Heflin Susan Hayward Boris Karloff Julie London Whitfield Connor |
Genre : | Drama Western War |
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Reviews
Wonderful character development!
This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.
This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.
It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.
Copyright jointly by Universal Pictures Co., Inc. and Walter Wanger Pictures, Inc., 24 June 1948. New York opening at Loew's Criterion: 25 August 1948. U.S. release: August 1948. U.K. release: 31 January 1949. Australian release: 2 December 1948. U.S. and Australian release through Universal-International. U.K. release through J. Arthur Rank-General Film Distributors. U.K. and U.S. length: 109 minutes. 9,789 feet. Australian length: 9,431 feet. 105 minutes.SYNOPSIS: The Civil War. Seceding from Mississippi, the Dabneys of Lebanon Valley try to hold out against Southern troops.NOTES: Location exteriors filmed in the Smokey Mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina.COMMENT: A cut-price Gone With The Wind, ambitious yet overlong, with all the action saved for the last reel. Rather splendidly and expensively staged the action is too. Those viewers with stamina and patience enough to endure the slow-moving, long-winded plot, the cardboard characters and the posturing ("acting" is too generous a word) of such players as Susan Hay ward, Van Heflin, Ward Bond and Whitfield Connor, will doubtless enjoy the sudden excitement. A few may resent being roused from their slumbers.But most cinemagoers will not bother to see the film at all. A wise decision - they will avoid boredom and ennui - but they will miss out on some grand scenery, colorfully photographed by Winton Hoch. The interiors lit by Lionel Lindon are attractive too - glossily picturesque to contrast with the more rugged work of Mr Hoch. Technicolor also enhances the costumes and sets leaving little to the imagination, though Miss Hayward is not always seen at her best.Perhaps the blame for the mechanical performances of the principals must be largely apportioned to George Marshall who directs throughout in a rather static, lifeless style. He is not the right man for period soap opera. Comedy is his forte. Some of the support players are more fluent, particularly Julie London who steals every scene in which she is allowed to appear. Karloff has an odd role as a friend-of-the-family Choctaw Indian. He is miscast - but we enjoy seeing him anyway.
One of a number of big-budget, Technicolor productions by the recently rebranded Universal-International with which the new management was attempting with disappointing results to raise their profile with an increased number of ambitious prestige films; which eventually morphed into their run of glossy women's pictures of the fifties. Produced with his usual discernment by Walter Wanger, directed by veteran George ('Destry Rides Again') Marshall and ably adapted by Alan Le May from a 1942 novel by James H. Street, 'Tap Roots' was the studio's attempt to make it's own 'Gone With the Wind', with luscious titian-haired Southern tigress Susan Hayward at the centre of some pretty racy dialogue and situations.Ms Hayward is frankly too old for the early scenes (she turned 30 during production and was thus on the verge of becoming the handsome middle-aged grand dame she gracefully matured into over the next fifteen years). But as the film progresses and her character matures her performance grows with her. All the acting is good, particularly Boris Karloff, despite being in blackface as an American Indian (SPOILER WARNING: the film never completely recovers from the almost casual way he gets killed off), and Ward Bond gives one of his best performances in an unusually prominent role in an 'A' feature.
The story is about the Dabney family and it begins in Mississippi just before the Civil War. The Dabneys are a proud family and not in favor of secession. But they and the folks around them are a distinct minority and eventually they end up seceding from Mississippi once the state joins the Confederacy. Not surprisingly, the new Confederacy is NOT pleased that this county has joined the Union...and bad things are a comin'.But there's much more to the tale and it centers around Morna Dabney (Susan Hayward). She is vivacious and beloved by Clay--a man who loves the idea of war and secession. But when Morna is injured and it appears as if she'll never walk again, Clay shows his true colors...and the roguish Keith (Van Helfin) steps up and shows he really is a heck of a guy.This is enjoyable and with very nice acting. The only real problem is that what happens to the Dabneys and the county is pretty much foreordained and there are few surprises here. The story, by the way, was inspired by a similar situation in Jones county, where such a rebellion against the state of Mississippi occurred.
Some suggest that this film was meant to be a poor man's "Gone With the Wind". A similar charge has often been leveled at the later film "Band of Angels", starring Clark Gable and Yvonne De Carlo There's probably some truth to this charge, but any film that deals with a subject somewhat resembling GWTW is going to be negatively compared to it. Remember, these 2 films are only half or less as long as GWTW. Why not just accept them on their own merits. They are all distinctive enough in their details to stand on their own.There were, of course, Southern Unionists before and during the Civil War. Sometimes they were concentrated in particular regions. An obvious example is the northwestern part of Virginia, which seceded to become West Virginia. One Unionist was Newton Knight, who lived in Jones County, MS. He enlisted in the Confederate army, but eventually deserted, claiming to be a Unionist forced to fight for the Confederacy. He was the leader of a group of mostly deserters, mostly from Jones county and surrounding counties, who acted as guerillas against government troops and officials. For a time, he was jailed as a deserter, and his homestead burned, as an example. At one point, Knight and his supporters hid in a swamp, which government troops had great difficulty penetrating. This is the historical background from which this story is derived.The Dabneys are the ruling extended family in the Levington Valley of MS. The patriarchal grandfather, Sam Dabney((Russell Simpson), is infirm on the eve of secession of MS from the Union, and dies after an emotional outburst against secession and its probable traumatic effect on his empire. His son and heir apparent: Hoab Dabney(Ward Bond), also is vehemently opposed to secession and against the war for similar reasons, and talks of seceding from the state if it secedes from the Union. Hoab's daughter, Morna(Susan Hayward), is engaged to a cavalry officer(Whitfield Connor, as Clay) in the US army, who will join the Confederate army, against the wishes of the Dabneys. However, Morna severely hurts her back from a horse fall, and the doctor claims she will never walk again(There is conflicting evidence whether one or both legs are affected). Clay pretends that his love for her has not now diminished, but he soon begins dating her sister Aven(Julie London), and soon they are married. Meanwhile, journalist Keith Alexander(Van Helfin) has professed his love for Morna whatever her physical condition in the future may be. Morna's attendants keep massaging her legs and encouraging her to try to walk. One day, Keith's talk makes her angry, and she stands. With more exercises, she eventually is able to walk, albeit with a limp.Meanwhile, Clay's troops have blockaded the southern pass out of the valley, so that the residents can't get supplies from the gulf port. Hoab and Keith have organized the valley residents into a fighting force against Clays troops. But Clay's artillery, especially, and setting of fires destroy the Dabney's mansion and other buildings. Hoab's and Keith's men retreat into a swamp, which Clay's troops are able to penetrate, and a battle ensues. I leave the climax and conclusion for you to see. Available at You Tube in Technicolor. The most interesting relationship is that between Morna and Clay. The combination of her incapacitating injury and Clay's joining of the Confederate Army wrecked their romantic involvement. When it was discovered that Clay's army was about to attack the valley from the north, whereas Keith and his men had gone south for supplies, she rode to Clay's camp with the idea of convincing him that she still loved him more than Keith. She seduced him, with the intent of delaying the assault on the valley until Keith's men could return. But Clay saw through her plan and used the time to alter his attack plan and move his cannons forward, in position to bombard the Dabney Mansion.