THE TOBACCO MEN

by Borden Deal ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 17, 1965

Impelled by his experience with the filming of The American Tragedy, Theodore Dreiser resolved to write directly for the screen. He chose the early robber barons of the tobacco industry as his subject and the tobacco wars of 1905 as his focal point. Dreiser researched the idea rather extensively in Kentucky, watching all the stages of tobacco growth, attending auctions, talking with farmers, visiting the site of the Civil Wars between the early monopolists and the victimized tobacco men. His screen play never made it, but the notes were turned over to Borden Deal in 1961. This story has more than feature interest, it relates directly to the bright leaf of Mr. Deal's book. Tobacco men attain, oddly enough, a rare and quite stunning power when novelist Deal uses the cinematic techniques which Theodore Dreiser must have had in mind. We see the boy Oren Knox, who grows up to control the industry, through his own camera's eye, fiercely involved with the sights and sounds and smells of tobacco. Sentences like: ""All the men he knew used tobacco. They smoked it, chewed it, snuffed it, they spattered the earth with its use, their jaws moving in long slow motion like cattle, they took pride in the range and accuracy of their expectoration"" seem written not for the page, well observed though they are, but for the screen. The novel bogs down, unfortunately, when the motivation and depths of characterization, which might do for the other medium, ring somewhat hollow in print.

Pub Date: May 17, 1965

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Holt, Rinehart & Winston

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1965

Categories: FICTION