Besides Native Americans, America was populated in the 17th and 18th centuries by tens of thousands of indentured servants, virtually slaves, sent across the Atlantic in horrific conditions, fatal for nearly half the passengers. The prisons and streets were swept by "transporters" and both children and adults from England, Ireland, and Scotland harvested tobacco and sugar for "masters," who whipped, branded, starved and mutilated their "servants." "White Bondage" seems to refer to this history in its depiction of southern sharecroppers during the Great Depression, worked and robbed by the "planters" year after year. Posses, bloodhounds, shotguns and lynching are part of this familiar story, too familiar for the hopelessly poor. Harry Davenport, the best Hollywood "oldtimer," this side of Charley Grapewin, stars, along with Jean Muir, apparently the sole blacklisted actor, and suave Gordon Oliver, soon to become a successful producer. Although not on "The Grapes of Wrath" level, this engaging melodrama offers, nonetheless, a vivid portrait of class conflict in rural America.
Review of White Bondage
