Download (3483kB) - Greenwich Academic Literature Archive ...

20 Mary L. Dudziak, Cold War, Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy, (Princeton:Princeton University Press, 2000), 11-13, 88-9.21 John Belton, 'American Cinema/American Culture' in Steven J. Ross, (ed.), Movies and American Society(Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2002), 198; Cripps, Making Movies Black, 182; Sklar, Movie-Made America,260-66; Ernest Giglio, Here's Looking at You: Hollywood, Film, and Politics (New York: Peter Lang, 2000)90.22 John H. Lenihan, Showdown: Confronting Modern America in the Western Film (Chicago: University ofIllinois Press, 1985), 33.23 The major film companies had to sell off their theatres, which reduced their control over exhibition.24 Schatz, Boom and Bust, 285.25 E. D. C. Campbell, The Celluloid South (Knoxville, Tennessee: University of Tennessee, 1981), 152-3;Cripps, Making Movies Black, 190.26 Ross Lockridge, Jr., wrote the book between 1941 and 1946. It was revised and partly serialised in Lifemagazine in 1947 before winning the MGM prize followed by a movie contract with Loews Incorporated. Itwas published in January 1948 with lavish reviews and became an instant best seller. Ross Lockeridge, Jr.,however committed suicide two months later, which may have contributed to the delay in bringing it to thescreen.27 James Street, Tap Roots (New York: Pocket Books, Inc., 1952), 8.The book does not completely accept total racial equality, as Quintus, the main African American malecharacter, is only allowed to us a knife in the final battle and he is buried separately from all the whites - 'ourmenfolks [the Irish] and your menfolks and the secesh dead. They are all together. Cep'n the nigger. Theyburied him up the trench a piece.' Street, Tap Roots, 483.29 In the book the Dabney's are overwhelmed and the few survivors have just enough left to restart their life.30 Southern Democrats walked out of the Democratic Convention of 1948 when the Party had adopted a pro-civil rights platform. Strom Thurmond was then nominated by his fellow 'Dixiecrats' as a presidentialcandidate and stood on an avowedly segregationist platform. One of his campaign documents said thatelecting Harry Truman would mean 'anti-lynching and anti-segregation proposals will become the law of theland and our way of life in the South will be gone forever.'31 Dudziak, Cold War, Civil Rights, 32, 79-107; Chafe, The Unfinished Journey 80-105; Fairclough, BetterDay Coming, 208-9; Manning Marable: The Second Reconstruction in Black America 1945-90 (New York:MacMillan, 1991).32 Based on the 1937 novel The Romance of Rosy Ridge by MacKinlay Kantor.33 Variety, 1 July, 1947; Film Daily, 2 July, 1947; Los Angeles Times, 23 August, 1947; Independent, 5 July1947.34 'Noticed one thing. Communists supposed to be exploiting plight of Negroes in South nowadays. Well thisis about Civil War issues and not a single in it, not even one in the background strummin' oP banjo.' NewYorker, November, 1947.35 Hollywood Independent, 5 July 1947.36MacKinlay Kantor, The Romance of Rosy Ridge (New York: The Readers' League of America, 1937), 56.37 From the book of the same name by Joe David Brown, published in 1946. The author adapted the story butis not credited with the script.81