One of a number of big-budget, Technicolor productions by the recently rebranded Universal-International with which the new management was attempting with disappointing results to raise their profile with an increased number of ambitious prestige films; which eventually morphed into their run of glossy women's pictures of the fifties. Produced with his usual discernment by Walter Wanger, directed by veteran George ('Destry Rides Again') Marshall and ably adapted by Alan Le May from a 1942 novel by James H. Street, 'Tap Roots' was the studio's attempt to make it's own 'Gone With the Wind', with luscious titian-haired Southern tigress Susan Hayward at the centre of some pretty racy dialogue and situations.
Ms Hayward is frankly too old for the early scenes (she turned 30 during production and was thus on the verge of becoming the handsome middle-aged grand dame she gracefully matured into over the next fifteen years). But as the film progresses and her character matures her performance grows with her. All the acting is good, particularly Boris Karloff, despite being in blackface as an American Indian (SPOILER WARNING: the film never completely recovers from the almost casual way he gets killed off), and Ward Bond gives one of his best performances in an unusually prominent role in an 'A' feature.
Ms Hayward is frankly too old for the early scenes (she turned 30 during production and was thus on the verge of becoming the handsome middle-aged grand dame she gracefully matured into over the next fifteen years). But as the film progresses and her character matures her performance grows with her. All the acting is good, particularly Boris Karloff, despite being in blackface as an American Indian (SPOILER WARNING: the film never completely recovers from the almost casual way he gets killed off), and Ward Bond gives one of his best performances in an unusually prominent role in an 'A' feature.