TAP ROOTS
US, 1948, 109 minutes, Colour.
Van Heflin, Susan Hayward, Boris Karloff, Julie London, Whitfield Connor, Ward Bond, Richard Long, Arthur Shields.
Directed by George Marshall.
Tap Roots has a reputation of being a minor Gone With The Wind. Its heroine, Susan Hayward, auditioned for the role of Scarlett O’Hara?. Here she has the opportunity of emulating the Vivien Leigh performance in Gone With The Wind.
The film was also criticised for its lack of strength in script. However, the elements are there for pre-civil war and civil war drama and melodrama.
The film is set in Mississippi, on a plantation where the father of the family does not want to secede from the confederation and wants to stay with the union. Susan Hayward portrays Morna Dabney, a strong heroine, engaged to a confederate soldier. However, influenced by a newspaperman, played by Van Heflin, and falling in love with him, she wants to ward off the attack on the town which her fiancé is leading.
The film has the burning of the plantation, the attack of the confederate army and the subsequent difficulties for the Dabney family.
The film has a strong cast including Ward Bond and Richard Long as the Dabneys, and Boris Karloff as an Indian with different kinds of cures.
Perhaps one of the difficulties was having George Marshall as the director. A very competent director of many westerns including Destry Rides Again, he was more of a popularist. He also directed many comedies, including a lot of the Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis films of the early 1950s.
However, the civil war and the plight of the south has always been a popular topic – and Tap Roots makes its own entertaining contribution.
1. The appeal of the American saga, American tradition and history? The
1. The Gone With The Wind tradition? A good example? The significance of the title and its relationship to heritage and history?
2. The treatment of the theme in the late forties, scope of the plot, history, characters in conflict? Colour, locations, music? Spectacular treatment or confined treatment?
3. The presentation of the valley, the pioneering attitudes, Sam Dabney and his pride, his heritage for his son and his granddaughters? The sense of the Dabney family? The role of the father, his influence on his children? The contrasting daughters and their attitude towards family pride? Their love for the southern man who would turn against the family? A picture of an American family before the Civil War and the conflict of issues?
4. How well did the film portray the build-up to the Civil War, attitudes in the south, reactions to the north, the issue of slavery, antagonism towards northern attitudes, towards Lincoln? Expectations about Lincoln's election? The bitterness and depth of the hostilities? Causes and loyalties? Causes and loyalties dividing families, friends?
5. How was Lincoln presented as an issue, as a symbol of the conflict? His attitude towards the United States, slavery, Independence? Southern reaction? The Dabney and the independent stand between north and south? Was this a real possibility or an ambitious utopian dream?
6. The film's focus on Morna as symbolizing all of this? As Susan Hayward portrayed her, fiery temperament, pride, family? Her love for the soldier? infatuation? The grandfather and his attitude towards her and wanting her to inherit? Her capacities for love, hatred? The antagonism towards Alexander? Her hostility, her pursuing the soldier? The accident and its effect on her? The ambiguities of loyalty and causes? Her response to the build-up of the war, her refusal to stand on her own feet, the transition with the arrival of the soldier? Her involvement in the war, trying to make up for what she had caused? The importance of her trying espionage? The reconciliation with Alexander, with her father? The fact that she symbolized the losses of the pre-Civil War family? The ambition to start again, the pioneering spirit?
7. The contrast with her sister, the relationship between the two, the domestic scenes and dresses etc., the rivalry over the fiance? The cause and the division of the sisters, the sister running off for marriage?
8. The presentation of Grandfather Dabney and his pride, the sybbolism and significance of his death, people's presence at his death, Morna's reaction? What had his son inherited from his father in terms of pride and stubbornness? His wanting to be independent, to preserve his heritage? The impositions on his children, on Alexander? His disillusionment with the tide of the war, the disillusionment in his death?
9. Alexander as hero, the initial respect of people, his role as a paper man, the family hostility and challenge? His entry into the household, Dabney's respect, Morna's ambiguous reaction? Alexander's decision and motives for helping Dabney, his love for Morna and his aggressive attitudes In love? Their clash, his helping her to regain her strength? His defending her because of her spying? His being with her to build up again the Dabney heritage?
10. The presentation of the war, the battles, the desperation of the family, sleges, the plans In taking into consideration forests, rivers and seasons? The importance of Tishomingo: his role in the household, his advice to Dabney, his pursuit to Morna and his willingness to die for the cause?
11. Comment on the battle sequences and audience involvement in them, deaths, the futility of the battles?
12. The film presented the death of the old and the beginning of the new on its ruins. The theme of hope? The western background and the conventions of the western, the American heritage and the 20th century being built this kind of 19th century courage?
