Producer: Henry Blanke. Copyright 16 June 1950 by Warner Brothers Pictures, Inc. New York opening at the Strand: 16 June 1950. U.S. release: 1 July 1950. U.K. release: 2 July 1951. Australian release: 20 September 1951. SYNOPSIS: In a Southern state in the late nineteenth century, the possession of a cigarette manufacturing machine brings a tenant farmer's son into control of a tobacco empire.COMMENT: Here's another film that doesn't deserve its poor reputation. The reason for this downgrading is of course that Hollywood was producing so many fine films in this period, the level of craftsmanship in a less-than-outstanding offering tended to be overlooked. Mind you, Bright Leaf has all the makings of "grade A" romance: best-selling novel, period setting, sweeping backgrounds, self-willed characters, illicit romance. The difficulty is that despite some persuasive (Cooper, Bacall, Carson, Crisp) and indeed fiery (Patricia Neal) acting, the people in this saga remain stubbornly one-dimensional. This fault is compounded by the tact that their particular traits are almost all unlikable. Royle's is a morose, vengeful figure at the center of an unlovely group of robber barons, con artists and connivers. Even Lauren Bacall's sweet eagerness is flawed by her profession and her hopeless love is so obviously foredoomed, it robs the script of a fair degree of romantic suspense. Crisp has a meaty part for once - and he makes the most of it - even though his character too is patently a mere pawn in the author's telegraphed chess game. It is Patricia Neal who excels, bringing such fire and vengeful malice to her role as to divert our attention momentarily from the mere mechanics of the plot.Whatever the shallowness of the script, it has been most appealingly dressed up in full regalia. The Warner Brothers have outfitted it in their finest production values: Karl Freund's crisply grey-toned deep-focus photography, Victor Young's atmospheric score, Stanley Fleischer's enormously vistaed sets. Director Michael Curtiz is in his element with such big-budget props. The action and crowd scenes are handled with his usual power. If the more intimate episodes lack the same conviction, it is not for want of dramatic skill, simply the fact that the script is often so stubbornly synthetic.Some of the support players are afforded excellent opportunities: Elizabeth Patterson is nicely cast as an independent-minded aunt, Jeff Corey is rightly long-suffering as a put-upon Yankee, Chick Chandler makes an amazingly sing-song auctioneer, while James Griffith limns an obsequious clerk to perfection. If the entertainment of the whole falls somewhat short of the sum of the parts, Bright Leaf is still one of the classier, flying high films of the year. Who can resist Cooper's Brant Royle, a truly tragic figure played with such assurance and conviction? (In many ways it's a typical role - well within the actor's range - but nowadays it has the fresh appeal of unfamiliarity.)

I think that Warner Brothers liked the performance that Gary Cooper gave in Edna Ferber's Saratoga Trunk which was released under their auspices a few years earlier. So when Cooper signs with Warner Brothers, Bright Leaf which is about the tobacco industry which has an Ferber like quality to it seemed perfect for him.It didn't turn out that unfortunately. Brant Royle may be the most unsympathetic character Gary Cooper who was THE archetypal screen hero ever played. He's come back to his home which is in a valley in the tobacco growing country of North Carolina looking for vengeance on Donald Crisp the tobacco baron who ruined his father. All he has as the family heir is a closed factory. But when Crisp refuses to take an interest in Jeff Corey's new cigarette rolling machine, Cooper latches on to Corey and with medicine show doctor Jack Carson to sell the product, the three form a partnership.Lauren Bacall who runs the town's house of joy with Gladys George helps kick start the firm with a financial investment. She likes Cooper well enough, but he's got eyes on Patricia Neal who is Crisp's daughter. Neal is a southern to the manor born heiress like Bette Davis in Jezebel and Vivien Leigh in Gone With The Wind. Those are high maintenance women and Cooper finds out just how high maintenance she is before the film concludes.Though this is a Gary Cooper film, the female co-stars really steal this film from the men. Neal and Bacall are whom you watch and remember from Bright Leaf and of course Gladys George who is never bad in anything.Though Bright Leaf is about a typical Edna Ferber empire builder the ending is anything like what you would find in a Ferber novel. Bright Leaf is a bit too melodramatic for my taste, but fans of the stars should find it good.

Produced in 1950 by Henry Blanke for Warner Brothers BRIGHT LEAF is set in the tobacco growing region of the American South at the turn of the 20th. Century. A highly charged drama - BRIGHT LEAF is about ambition, love and loss and retribution and was expertly directed by the prolific Michael Curtiz. Based on the novel by Foster Fitz-Simons it was splendidly written for the screen by Ranald MacDougall ("Mildred Peirce") from which emerged a sparkling, and at times, spontaneous script. Its balmy Southern setting looked great thanks to the smart Art Direction by Stanley Fleischer, the crisp Monochrome Cinematography of Karl Freund and the atmospheric music by the always wonderful Victor Young.Gary Cooper is Brant Royle who returns to his home in the South after some years. He rides into Kingsmont where years before his family was dispossessed, humiliated and forced out at the hands of wealthy tobacco tycoon Major Singleton (Donald Crisp). Now he's back and intends to exact some sort of vengeance on the irascible and acerbic Major. Low on funds ("I own a good horse - I own a good suit of clothes and I have $40 in my pocket") he meets up with an old flame - the attractive Sonia Kovac (Lauren Bacall) who runs a "boarding house for young ladies" and persuades her to back him in a business venture in establishing a new idea of a cigarette making machine. The enterprise is a runaway success and almost overnight Royle - along with his partners Sonia and Chris Malley (Jack Carson) - becomes a millionaire to the chagrin of the Major. Royle had always loved the Major's unobtainable and distant daughter Margaret (Patricia Neal) and makes plans now to marry her. This - together with Royle's on going presence in Kingsmont, his phenomenal business success and a pistol duel between them that goes wrong - drives the Major to take his own life. Later Margaret does agree to marry him but only with the sole purpose to destroy Brant Royle and obtain retribution for the death of her father. The picture ends with Royle financially ruined and a well executed climactic sequence which sees the opulent Singleton mansion going up in flames. With Sonia also turning him down Brant Royle rides out of Kingsmont on the same road he entered in the hope of finding contentment elsewhere.One of the great aspects of BRIGHT LEAF is the stunning score by the great (and cigar chomping) Victor Young! Normally a Warner picture like this would have a score by the studio's resident composer Max Steiner. But Steiner was over committed on other projects and suggested his friend Victor Young write the music. Young accepted the assignment and turned in one of his finest scores. The Main Title is a sprawling and sweeping theme for full orchestra! A ravishing piece with the strings, upward yearning, climbing to their topmost register. There is also a gorgeous plaintive melody for the Lauren Bacall character, a brilliantly exciting cue for a montage of the cigarette machine as it spews out thousands of cigarettes and a frantic cue near the end for the magnificent house fire. The music from BRIGHT LEAF is high on the list of admirers of Young's scores! BRIGHT LEAF is an engrossing and engaging story and has smooth performances throughout. Cooper is particularly good as is Bacall but Neal's southern nasally drawl is a bit grating at times. And in a rare unsympathetic role Donal Crisp is excellent as the Major. Curiously cigarette smoking is somewhat glorified in the picture and viewing the film today - some sixty years after it was made and when the smoking habit is increasingly taboo - it now seems a little perverse!Classic line from BRIGHT LEAF...........Jack Carson to Lauren Bacall when she bail's him out of jail......."Maam! I consider you a rare gem in the diadem of womanhood".

I too have seen this movie many times & whenever possible. I have seen nearly every Gary Cooper movie. This is by far his best performance! The combination of star power, story and character interplay is flawless. If you have never seen a Cooper movie, see this one first. I'm also a huge fan of Donald Crisp. Again, a tremendous performance (though a slight step back of How Green Was My Valley). Never been a big Patricia Neal fan but, again, a great performance. Just another great job by Bacall. This is nearly in the EPIC category as movies go. Somewhat loosely based on the history of the tobacco industry/progression, it chronicles the rise in popularity & proliferation of cigarettes. This is truly a hidden gem that most movie fans are unaware of, but should be. And if that weren't enough, it was directed by the great Michael Curtiz.