The Cabin in the Cotton (1932)

Proclaiming that it is not meant to take sides, this film does not seem to live up to that promise. Richard Barthelmess is the intelligent son of a sharecropper. When the sharecropper dies from overwork, the plantation owner takes Richard under his wing and has him educated, mostly because of a push by his daughter Bette Davis. Richard is a bit old for the role as a young man torn between the community he was raised in and the people who helped him improve his station, but the film itself is not torn. The owners are one-dimensionally determined to hold on to any benefits and profits themselves, maintaining practices of usury that keep the tenants in debt to the grave and lynching anyone who dares to get in the way. It’s only through the threat of jail that they can be bribed to consider a profit sharing plan.