# The Southerner
**The Southerner** is a 1945 American black-and-white drama film written and directed by [Jean Renoir](https://www.edgepedia.org/jean-renoir), adapted from George Sessions Perry's 1941 novel *Hold Autumn in Your Hand*, about a Texas sharecropper who leaves wage picking to work his own small farm.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/24591-THE-SOUTHERNER) It was the third of Renoir's American films and his first independent Hollywood production, made for Loew-Hakim, Inc. and released through [United Artists](https://www.edgepedia.org/united-artists).[2](https://www.encyclopedia.com/movies/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/southerner) The film earned three Academy Award nominations, won the best picture award at the 1946 [Venice Biennale](https://www.edgepedia.org/venice-biennale), and is widely regarded as the strongest film of Renoir's Hollywood years.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/24591-THE-SOUTHERNER) • [3](https://www.moma.org/explore/inside_out/2011/08/02/jean-renoirs-the-southerner/)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Director and writers | Jean Renoir (direction and screenplay), Hugo Butler (adaptation); uncredited contributions attributed to William Faulkner, Nunnally Johnson, and possibly John Huston[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/24591-THE-SOUTHERNER) |
| Literary source | The novel *Hold Autumn in Your Hand* by George Sessions Perry (New York, 1941)[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/24591-THE-SOUTHERNER) |
| Principal cast | Zachary Scott (Sam Tucker), Betty Field (Nona), J. Carrol Naish (Devers), Beulah Bondi (Granny), Percy Kilbride, Blanche Yurka, Norman Lloyd[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/24591-THE-SOUTHERNER) |
| Production | Loew-Hakim, Inc.; producers David L. Loew and Robert Hakim; cinematography Lucien Andriot; music Werner Janssen; shot 7 September to early November 1944 in California[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/24591-THE-SOUTHERNER) |
| Release | 18 May 1945; world premiere in Boston 1 August 1945; New York opening 25 August 1945; running time 91–92 or 96 minutes, 10 reels[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/24591-THE-SOUTHERNER) |
| Awards | Three Oscar nominations (Best Director, Best Music Scoring, Best Sound Recording); Venice Biennale best picture 1946; National Board of Review best director for Renoir[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/24591-THE-SOUTHERNER) • [4](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038107/awards/) |
| Reception today | 92% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer from 13 reviews[5](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/southerner) |
## Spoilers
### Plot
The story follows Sam Tucker ([Zachary Scott](https://www.edgepedia.org/zachary-scott)), a cotton picker who, as his uncle Pete dies of heat stroke in a Texas field, resolves to work land of his own. With his wife Nona ([Betty Field](https://www.edgepedia.org/betty-field)), their children Jot and Daisy, and his cantankerous grandmother ([Beulah Bondi](https://www.edgepedia.org/beulah-bondi)), Sam moves onto an idle plot rented from his boss Ruston, equipped with two mules and some cotton seed. The farmhouse is barely livable and the well is dry; the family survives by borrowing water from a neighbor, the embittered Devers (J. Carrol Naish), who grants access grudgingly and predicts failure.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/24591-THE-SOUTHERNER)
Over the course of a year the Tuckers face bad weather, sickness, scarce food, and the hostility of neighbors, including a flood that nearly ends their struggle.[5](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/southerner) • [6](https://www.timeout.com/movies/the-southerner) Time Out describes the film as "a year-in-the-life" of the family, "both romantic and realistic in its investigation of courage and freedom."[6](https://www.timeout.com/movies/the-southerner)
## Production
**Casting and script.** [Joel McCrea](https://www.edgepedia.org/joel-mccrea) and his wife [Frances Dee](https://www.edgepedia.org/frances-dee) were first cast in the leads, but they were replaced at the start of principal photography by Zachary Scott and Betty Field because of creative differences between McCrea and Renoir.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/24591-THE-SOUTHERNER) According to film notes published by the New York State Writers Institute, Renoir's original choice was McCrea, who was put off by Renoir's impressionistic script; Renoir himself suggested Scott, who had grown up in Texas and knew the world of cotton planting the film wished to capture.[7](https://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/filmnotes/fns03n10.html) When first approached, Renoir read Hugo Butler's adaptation and rejected it, then rewrote the script based on his own reading of the novel with the help of his secretary Paula Walling, who is credited onscreen as dialogue director.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/24591-THE-SOUTHERNER) Modern sources attribute uncredited script work to Nunnally Johnson, William Faulkner, and perhaps [John Huston](https://www.edgepedia.org/john-huston); Faulkner became involved after Scott introduced him to Renoir, and reportedly reworked the dialogue for the scene in which the Tuckers light the stove in their new house and contributed to the scene in which Sam catches "Lead Pencil."[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/24591-THE-SOUTHERNER)
**Title.** The working titles were *Hold Autumn in Your Hand* and *Tuckers of Texas*. The novel's title was dropped after a Gallup poll indicated it created a misleading impression, or no impression at all; translated Renoir letters also record *Down by the River* as a suggested title.[8](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/24591-)
**Locations.** Renoir had planned to shoot in Texas, where the story is set, but wartime demands on transportation kept the production in California.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/24591-THE-SOUTHERNER) • [9](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038107/trivia/) California locales hosted most of the filming: among them were the Arthur Ranch in the [San Fernando Valley](https://www.edgepedia.org/san-fernando-valley), the RKO ranch close to Encino, Malibu, spots along the San Joaquin River, and cotton fields near Madera, a town twenty-five miles from Fresno. Because the Madera cotton fields were owned by members of a conservative Russian sect that prohibited reproduction of the human face, the film company temporarily purchased the land to avoid conflicts.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/24591-THE-SOUTHERNER)
## Reception and awards
The film received mostly favorable reviews. Bosley Crowther of *The New York Times* called it "a rich, unusual and sensitive delineation of a segment of the American scene well worth filming and seeing," while the *Variety* reviewer complained that "these are times when there is a greater need. Escapism is the word."[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/24591-THE-SOUTHERNER) In early August 1945, Lloyd T. Binford, chairman of the Board of Censors for Memphis, Tennessee, banned the film as a slur against Southern farmers; Loew hired a lawyer to test the ban's legality, but the outcome is not known.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/24591-THE-SOUTHERNER)
The picture received three Academy Award nominations for 1945: Best Direction, Best Music (Scoring, Dramatic or Comedy Picture, for Werner Janssen), and Best Sound Recording (Jack Whitney).[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/24591-THE-SOUTHERNER) • [4](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038107/awards/) It was Renoir's only nomination for the Best Director Oscar.[7](https://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/filmnotes/fns03n10.html) The National Board of Review rated it the third best film of 1945 and voted Renoir best director, and the film won the best picture award at the 1946 Venice Biennale.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/24591-THE-SOUTHERNER)
## Place in Renoir's career
Jean Renoir (1894–1979) made six films during his American exile after fleeing occupied France, and the [Museum of Modern Art](https://www.edgepedia.org/museum-of-modern-art)'s film curator Charles Silver writes that "the consensus is that *The Southerner* is the best."[3](https://www.moma.org/explore/inside_out/2011/08/02/jean-renoirs-the-southerner/) The Harvard Film Archive calls it "often regarded as his strongest Hollywood production," noting its portrait of a region holding to tradition in the face of modernization.[10](https://harvardfilmarchive.org/calendar/the-southerner-0000-00) In his autobiography Renoir wrote that what attracted him to the story was "precisely the fact that there was no story, nothing but a series of strong impressions," and he considered the film one of his most satisfying American works.[7](https://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/filmnotes/fns03n10.html) • [1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/24591-THE-SOUTHERNER)
The film's visual approach is linked to the documentary tradition: MoMA connects it to Pare Lorentz's *The River* and to *The Land*, made by Renoir's American sponsor Robert Flaherty, and the film returns to the river motif central to Renoir's earlier work, from *La Fille de l'eau* (1925) to *The River* (1951).[3](https://www.moma.org/explore/inside_out/2011/08/02/jean-renoirs-the-southerner/) The critic [James Agee](https://www.edgepedia.org/james-agee) praised the possum hunt sequence for capturing "the mournful, hungry mysteriousness of a Southern country winter," and called the film "one of the most sensitive and beautiful American-made pictures I have seen."[7](https://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/filmnotes/fns03n10.html) In France, where the film was released on 30 May 1950 under the rejected title *L'homme du sud*, Larousse's encyclopedia reads it as announcing the serene contemplation of nature that culminated in *The River* five years later.[11](https://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark%3A/12148/cb16717026s) • [12](https://www.larousse.fr/encyclopedie/film/lHomme_du_Sud/5203)
## References
1. [The Southerner (1945), AFI Catalog of Feature Films](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/24591-THE-SOUTHERNER)
2. [The Southerner, Encyclopedia.com](https://www.encyclopedia.com/movies/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/southerner)
3. [Jean Renoir's The Southerner, MoMA (Charles Silver, 2011)](https://www.moma.org/explore/inside_out/2011/08/02/jean-renoirs-the-southerner/)
4. [The Southerner (1945) – Awards, IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038107/awards/)
5. [The Southerner, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/southerner)
6. [The Southerner, Time Out](https://www.timeout.com/movies/the-southerner)
7. [Film Notes: The Southerner, New York State Writers Institute](https://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/filmnotes/fns03n10.html)
8. [The Southerner (1945), AFI Catalog history page](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/24591-)
9. [The Southerner (1945) – Trivia, IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038107/trivia/)
10. [The Southerner, Harvard Film Archive](https://harvardfilmarchive.org/calendar/the-southerner-0000-00)
11. [Notice de titre conventionnel "The Southerner (film)", BnF](https://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark%3A/12148/cb16717026s)
12. [L'Homme du Sud / The Southerner, Larousse](https://www.larousse.fr/encyclopedie/film/lHomme_du_Sud/5203)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Drama and biographical films (individual works) › Drama films 1940s*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license