The Cabin in the Cotton

The Cabin in the Cotton is a 1932 American PreCode drama film directed by Michael Curtiz. The screenplay by Paul Green is based on the novel of the same title by Harry Harrison Kroll.

Marvin Blake is a sharecroppers son who wants to better himself by continued schooling instead of working in the fields under the heat in the Deep South. Initially, greedy plantation owner Lane Norwood is opposed to the idea and says he needs to work in his fields, but after the sudden death of his overworked father, he grudgingly helps Blake achieve his goal and gives the young man a job as a bookkeeper when his vampish daughter Madge intercedes on his behalf. Blake uncovers irregularities in Norwoods accounts and soon finds himself embroiled in a battle between management and workers and torn between the seductive Madge and his longtime sweetheart Betty Wright.When producer Darryl F. Zanuck urged Michael Curtiz to cast Bette Davis as Madge Norwood, the director responded, Are you kidding? Who would want to go to bed with her? Angry that he was forced to use her against his will, Curtiz fumed throughout the shoot, loudly deriding her as a goddamned lousy actress or calling her a Goddamnednothingnogoodsexlesssonofabitch under his breath during her love scenes with Richard Barthelmess. In later years, Davis observed, Mr. Curtiz, I must say, monster as he was, was a great European moviemaker. He was not a performers director . . . You had to be very strong with him. And he wasnt fun . . . He was a real BASTARD Cruelest man I have ever known. But he knew how to shoot a film well. She went on to make six additional films with Curtiz, including The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex in 1939. ........

Source: Wikipedia