Bright Leaf is a relatively absorbing story of a man who comes home to tobacco country in the late 1800s and goes into the cigarette manufacturing business.
Gary Cooper plays that man, Brant Royle, whose raison d'etre is to get back at a tobacco tycoon who dispossessed his family years before. Coop is really not the type for this sort of role. He plays it well enough, but it's easy to picture other actors who were much more suited to it.
Royle is involved with two women, a tobacco heiress who's a bit sadomasochistic (Patricia Neal), and a down to earth lady of the evening (Lauren Bacall, in her last film under her original Warner contract). There's a business partner he isn't very good to (Jack Carson), the father-in-law who hates him for various reasons (Donald Crisp), and the smart Northerner whose cigarette-making machine sets Brant up in business (Jeff Corey). Elizabeth Patterson (as Neal's Aunt Tabby) and Gladys George are in it too.
Bright Leaf manages to hold the interest, but it's something of a potboiler. There's something tired about it (maybe it's Cooper. He was 50-ish and still playing a youngish man). It's not the finest hour of anyone in the cast (though Crisp is impressive). Nonetheless, director Michael Curtiz does a lot with the material. The atmosphere is well done. The action and movement, the use of bit players, as well as extras, is the work of a highly talented craftsman. Watch closely as various scenes unfold (Cooper riding into the town - Kingsmont - for the first time, for example - with all the activity swirling around him). It's incredibly fine work.
The production values - cinematography (Karl Freund), costumes, sets, music (Victor Young) are top of the line.
Gary Cooper plays that man, Brant Royle, whose raison d'etre is to get back at a tobacco tycoon who dispossessed his family years before. Coop is really not the type for this sort of role. He plays it well enough, but it's easy to picture other actors who were much more suited to it.
Royle is involved with two women, a tobacco heiress who's a bit sadomasochistic (Patricia Neal), and a down to earth lady of the evening (Lauren Bacall, in her last film under her original Warner contract). There's a business partner he isn't very good to (Jack Carson), the father-in-law who hates him for various reasons (Donald Crisp), and the smart Northerner whose cigarette-making machine sets Brant up in business (Jeff Corey). Elizabeth Patterson (as Neal's Aunt Tabby) and Gladys George are in it too.
Bright Leaf manages to hold the interest, but it's something of a potboiler. There's something tired about it (maybe it's Cooper. He was 50-ish and still playing a youngish man). It's not the finest hour of anyone in the cast (though Crisp is impressive). Nonetheless, director Michael Curtiz does a lot with the material. The atmosphere is well done. The action and movement, the use of bit players, as well as extras, is the work of a highly talented craftsman. Watch closely as various scenes unfold (Cooper riding into the town - Kingsmont - for the first time, for example - with all the activity swirling around him). It's incredibly fine work.
The production values - cinematography (Karl Freund), costumes, sets, music (Victor Young) are top of the line.