Tap Roots (1948)
Directed by George T. Marshall
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Synopsis by Hal Erickson
Set at the beginning of the Civil War, Tap Roots is all about a county in Mississippi which chooses to secede from the state rather than enter the conflict. The county is protected from the Confederacy by an abolitionist (Ward Bond) and a Native American gentleman (Boris Karloff). The abolitionist's daughter (Susan Hayward) is courted by a powerful newspaper publisher (Van Heflin) when her fiance (Whitfield Connor), a confederate officer, elopes with the girl's sister (Julie London). The daughter at first resists the publisher's attentions, but turns to him for aid when her ex-fiance plans to capture the seceding county on behalf of the South. A pocket-edition Gone With the Wind, Tap Roots is way too ambitious for its smallish budget. Modern viewers can have fun spotting such anachronisms as the Southern troops' use of dynamite--several years before it was invented.
Characteristics
Keywords
Civil-War [US], secession, war, army, attack, battle [war], cabin, conflict, cure, defense [military], doctor/nurse, duel, family, farming, father, land, landowner, leader, love, lover, major, medical, medicine-man, mountains, Native-American, newspaper, plans, promise, publisher, rebel, romance, sister, slavery, son, Southerner, suffering, territory, weapons, wedding, wound [injury]
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