El rey del tabaco

... and fortunately I am not a post-war audience because I liked it a great deal.

It's got a pretty familiar outline among melodramas - a man run out of town (Gary Cooper as Brant Royale) by the local king of tobacco Major James Singleton (Donald Crisp), decides to get revenge by backing the development of a cigarette manufacturing machine and grinding Singleton to financial dust. All the while he is entranced by Singleton's daughter Margaret (Patricia Neal), a bloodless creature, while ignoring the girl who has loved him all along, the true blue Sonia (Lauren Bacall).

Its charm is in its casting. Never has Gary Cooper played somebody so unlikeable and so far from the heroic characters he typically played such as Alvin York and Will Kane - the latter character being one he hadn't even portrayed yet. Lauren Bacall balked at playing both the proprietor of a bawdy house AND having a southern accent. The screenwriters thus made her Polish, I guess to explain her rather mild New York accent in a North Carolina setting???

Patricial Neal is a standout. Throughout the piece she moves and stands stiffly, appearing as a mannequin or a music box dancer, only smiling - also stiffly - when she can think of some kind of trouble she can cause. Thus even in movement she is in sharp contrast to straight shooter Sonia. Finally there is Jack Carson - he's a patent medicine salesman who Brant cavalierly makes a partner at the beginning of his entreprises, and he turns out to be a loyal friend. This is something I've noticed about director Michael Curtiz - He certainly knew how to give good roles to and get good performances out of Warner Brothers contract player Jack Carson.

I'd recommend this one. I think it has redeemed itself over time from being the "doomed masterpiece" it was once called.