"The Cabin in the Cotton" attempted to address a serious issue going on in the South at that time. I say attempted because I think it neglected to go deeper into the issue.
The movie took place somewhere in the South on a cotton farm. The principle characters were Lane Norwood (Berton Churchill), a landowner and cotton farmer, Marvin Blake (Richard Barthelmess), the son of a tenant farmer who worked for Mr. Norwood, and the tenant farmers collectively.
Mr. Norwood was representative of most big farmers with tenants: he was rich, unsympathetic toward his sharecroppers, and a cheat. In his case he wouldn't outright lie or steal from the sharecroppers, but he would overcharge for everything and charge them exorbitant interest on whatever they borrowed.
The tenant farmers were represented by several different characters. They were portrayed as ignorant, tribal, uncouth, and tactless. So even though they had a legitimate gripe it came off as simple greed and ignorance of the system.
Marvin was between the two. Marvin showed promise as a little boy and, unlike most tenant farmer children, he went to school. Because Mr. Norwood's daughter, Madge (Bette Davis), showed an interest in Marvin, her father hired him. That put Marvin in the precarious position of being between two worlds. One world was the one he'd just left, that of the poor farmers trying to get by. The other world was the world Marvin just entered, that as the bookkeeper of Mr. Norwood, so he had a feeling of some sort of fidelity and loyalty toward Mr. Norwood.
Marvin was torn between the two groups. The tenant farmers wanted their rights even if it meant stealing the cotton, while Mr. Norwood wanted them to keep working based upon the system he set up. In the end Marvin came up with a share plan that was supposed to be best for both parties.
Even though TCitC showed the treachery of the planters I don't think it went far enough because they showed the relationship between white landowners and white tenant farmers while we know that the relationship between white landowners and Black tenant farmers was far worse. Whatever injustices white tenant farmers suffered you can multiply that by ten for Black tenant farmers. Not only were they routinely cheated, if they even broached the topic of being cheated they could get lynched, and don't even think about a revolt of some kind. So, while TCitC sheds some light upon the landowner-tenant relationship, they could've gone further.
The movie took place somewhere in the South on a cotton farm. The principle characters were Lane Norwood (Berton Churchill), a landowner and cotton farmer, Marvin Blake (Richard Barthelmess), the son of a tenant farmer who worked for Mr. Norwood, and the tenant farmers collectively.
Mr. Norwood was representative of most big farmers with tenants: he was rich, unsympathetic toward his sharecroppers, and a cheat. In his case he wouldn't outright lie or steal from the sharecroppers, but he would overcharge for everything and charge them exorbitant interest on whatever they borrowed.
The tenant farmers were represented by several different characters. They were portrayed as ignorant, tribal, uncouth, and tactless. So even though they had a legitimate gripe it came off as simple greed and ignorance of the system.
Marvin was between the two. Marvin showed promise as a little boy and, unlike most tenant farmer children, he went to school. Because Mr. Norwood's daughter, Madge (Bette Davis), showed an interest in Marvin, her father hired him. That put Marvin in the precarious position of being between two worlds. One world was the one he'd just left, that of the poor farmers trying to get by. The other world was the world Marvin just entered, that as the bookkeeper of Mr. Norwood, so he had a feeling of some sort of fidelity and loyalty toward Mr. Norwood.
Marvin was torn between the two groups. The tenant farmers wanted their rights even if it meant stealing the cotton, while Mr. Norwood wanted them to keep working based upon the system he set up. In the end Marvin came up with a share plan that was supposed to be best for both parties.
Even though TCitC showed the treachery of the planters I don't think it went far enough because they showed the relationship between white landowners and white tenant farmers while we know that the relationship between white landowners and Black tenant farmers was far worse. Whatever injustices white tenant farmers suffered you can multiply that by ten for Black tenant farmers. Not only were they routinely cheated, if they even broached the topic of being cheated they could get lynched, and don't even think about a revolt of some kind. So, while TCitC sheds some light upon the landowner-tenant relationship, they could've gone further.