This is a pretty good film with some memorable actors. "Tobacco Road" was a best selling book and later a successful play. Though comedic, the story is rather sad. We have a group of people barely having enough to eat. Because they are not very well educated or have little ambition, their choices are really limited. Jeeter, the main character, is a thief and an opportunist. As is often the case, his peccadilloes only come back to bite him. When he steals, he is too stupid to get away. I watched this movie with my father back ion the fifties and for many years it gave me my impression of what came to be called hillbillies. Of course, these stereotypes were enhanced by the very successful TV comedy, "The Beverly Hillbillies." The movie made me crawl because these people were so shortsighted and so careless and so close to the edge. I never got the humor.

Once lucrative Tobacco Road, which ran down to Augusta, Georgia, has become poverty stricken as credit for seed and fertilizer has dried up and the fields have gone fallow. The impact of the economic catastrophe has left the Tobacco Road farmers in a state of terminal shock. With the Jeeter family as the main protagonists, specifically Pa Jeeter, you have to wonder whether these people are naturally lazy or their laziness is a result of their hopeless economic plight. Why work if you're going to get thrown off the land anyway? In any event, any desire to get ahead seems to have been long lost. Since John Ford directed the film, Ford's Jeeters make an interesting comparison with his Joads from the Grapes of Wrath. I doubt if the Jeeters connect with audiences as well as the Joads, though they have their own sort of bizarre charm.

Dirt poor, elderly Georgia farmer Jeeter Lester (Charley Grapewin) schemes to get some money so that he and his wife Ada (Elizabeth Patterson) can remain at their dilapidated frame house on Tobacco Road, in this Great Depression era story, part comedy, part drama.As country hicks, most of the characters are rather too stereotyped to be realistic. The film's script is very talky, not surprising since the story originated as a stage play. The film's plot varies wildly from slapstick comedy to morose drama. And therein lies the main problem.Rural poverty in the South during the 1930s was no laughing matter. It was an intensely painful and prolonged episode of human misery. I can understand how viewers in those days needed some comic relief, but not in a story about poverty. The hyper-antics of young Dude, the film's comic relief, are extremely annoying. Those scenes dilute the seriousness of the film's underlying theme. And the subplot wherein Dude and Sister Bessie go off together seems like plot filler.Charley Grapewin gives a fine performance in the lead role. But Marjorie Rambeau as Sister Bessie, and William Tracy as Dude overact. Part of this overacting could have been the result of poor film direction.The film's background music runs the gamut from frivolous and nondescript in the comedic scenes to old-time gospel songs like "Shall We Gather At The River" during more serious moments.Given the era in which the film was made, "Tobacco Road" is okay, if you give it some slack. But the story would have been better without the slapstick comedy. In any event, it's a good movie to watch when you're depressed and think things can't get much worse.

I have seen this film on television 5 or 6 times in the last 30 years,and would sit and watch it anytime! Why is it not re-released,I know 3(like minded)people who would love to have this movie, And when you delve into the origins!wow!its HOT! even for now! OK so the play is different, but that doesn't take from a hilarious plot! I have searched for a copy a couple of times over the last 2 years,to no avail, only on VHS and available in the USA only! Who owns the rights to the film? and can you please release it? Like a lot of early films this has somehow missed the 'Classic label' but I think it is a real Classic and very funny!well worth watching,out of ten I would give it a 10/10 as even the silver screen helps as a mood enhancer,this was made during the depression! so I'm not sure where the 1941 comes from?