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The online film magazine Combustible Celluloid offers new movie reviews, DVD reviews, film reviews, actor interviews, actress interviews, director interviews, film books and all things cinema related for the thoughtful and passionate. Online for ten years! Over 3000 reviews!

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The Southerner (1945)

Rating: 4 Stars (out of 4)

Farm Aid

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

Buy The Southerner on DVD.

For the price, The Southerner (1945, VCI Entertainment, $9.99) is already a bargain, but it's also essential viewing. During WWII, celebrated French director Jean Renoir came to Hollywood for a brief period of English language films. For this one, he commissioned William Faulkner to touch up the film's screenplay (without credit) and lifted this rather ordinary tale of troubled farmers to poetic heights that any other director couldn't dream of reaching.

DVD Details: VCI's DVD comes with an Edgar Kennedy comedy short, Baby Daze and selected cast and crew biographies.

Starring: Zachary Scott, Betty Field, Beulah Bondi, J. Carrol Naish, Blanche Yurka, Percy Kilbride, Estelle Taylor
Written by: Jean Renoir, Hugo Butler, William Faulkner
Directed by: Jean Renoir
MPAA Rating: NR
Language: English
Running Time: 91 minutes
Date: March 28, 2002