Tap Roots ** (1948, Van Heflin, Susan Hayward, Boris Karloff, Julie London, Whitfield Connor, Ward Bond, Richard Long, Arthur Shields, Griff Barnett) – Classic Movie Review 10,709

Director George Marshall’s 1948 Tap Roots is a bloodless Mississippi-set Civil War romantic drama with Susan Hayward and Van Heflin emoting to little effect as lovers, Southern belle Morna Dabney and Keith Alexander, trying to ignore the war in a valley area that desperately wants not to be involved.

Tap Roots is produced with style by Walter Wanger at obvious great expense for Universal studios, and it looks good in Technicolor, but it just isn’t exciting or involving, and the anaemic plot simply drifts away.

Boris Karloff has fun as a medicine-man called Tishomingo, the family’s servant, and Ward Bond makes the most of his too-little screen time as patriarch Hoab Dabney, but Heflin isn’t dashing or charming enough as the romantic hero and Hayward seems too tough and sensible to play a capricious young lady.

The screenplay by Alan Le May and Lionel Wiggam is based on the novel by James H Street.

It also features Julie London, Whitfield Connor, Ward Bond, Richard Long, Arthur Shields, Griff Barnett, Sondra Rodgers, Ruby Dandridge, Russell Simpson, Gregg Barton, Jonathan Hale, Arthur Space, Kay Medford, William Haade, Harry Cording, George J Lewis, Helen Mowery, William Challee, John James, Keith Richards, Bill Neff, Hank Worden and Elmo Lincoln.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 10,709

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com