The Cabin in the Cotton

A good example of Warner's social crusading style. The script takes care to include some shifty sharecroppers, but mostly it's about wealthy planters exploiting their poverty stricken tenants, with Barthelmess as the man in the middle. At the climax our hero advocates lawbreaking to change the system, but even then the characters remain those of a formula melodrama of the day. Blonde Bette Davis is very lively as the boss's daughter, teasing guileless Barthelmess ('Cute! I'd like to kiss ya, but I just washed my hair'), making him dance the Peckerwood Wiggle and singing 'Willie the Weeper' as she slips into 'something more restful,' i.e. nothing at all.