After thoroughly enjoying Ron Ormond’s White Lightnin’ Road, I figured I’d give another one of his Hicksploitation flicks a chance. I was excited to see Girl from Tobacco Row because it features much of the same cast as White Lightnin’ Road. Some actors even play characters that have the same name (or close to it), although they don’t seem to be playing the same exact character. Whereas that minor classic was heavily padded with genuinely exciting stock car racing scenes, all this one has to offer is some boring gospel tunes, slow country numbers, and lethargic fiddling to tie the thin narrative together.
Snake (Earl “Snake” Richards) escapes from a chain gang and goes on the lam. Tim (Tim Ormond, Ron’s son) is a young boy who urges his preacher papa (former cowboy star and father of John, Tex Ritter) to take Snake in. After some churching up, Snake starts taking a shine to the preacher man’s daughter (Rachel Romen). Little does the family know, Snake is only sniffing around to get a suitcase full of loot that one of his late compatriots hid on the premises. After being privy to a loving home for the first time in probably forever, the question soon arises, will Snake take the money and run, or will he try to make a fresh start with his new makeshift family unit?
Girl from Tobacco Row has some of the same kind of overcooked southern melodrama White Lightnin’ Road had, but the difference is that this one is deadly dull. Although the opening escape sequence isn’t too bad, things quickly bog down once the preacher character is introduced. His endless sermonizing ensures the movie will stop on a dime every time he opens his pie hole. Without a strong hook (like the stock car racing angle), it all just sort of dies on the vine.
The performances also lack the spark of White Lightnin’ Road. Snake (who also performs a rather tepid number) isn’t too bad in this, but he did a much better job when cast as the antagonist. Only young Tim Ormond seems to retain his enthusiasm from film to film. Fans of the old Nashville Network will get a kick out of seeing Ralph Emery as a hitman, although that’s hardly a ringing endorsement.
Ormond made this the year before White Lightnin’ Road and the difference is night and day. (It almost feels like a dry run for that movie.) Instead of the plot threads coming to a head at the big stock car race, it climaxes at the annual “Tobacco Festival” where a bunch of shitty country and western acts play. While there are some thematically similar sequences (like Snake getting caught making time with a hot to trot southern belle), everything Ormond tried to do here is pretty much a bust, especially compared to White Lightnin’ Road.
Things improve somewhat when the flick starts heading into the homestretch. The performance by a couple who do not one, not two, but THREE harmonica solos are an unintentional laugh riot. They’re easily the best part of the movie, but for all the wrong reasons. I mean get a load of the guy playing the oversized harmonica. He looks positively batty, and the faces he makes while watching Snake’s big fistfight while not missing a beat on his harmonica provides the second biggest laugh in the film.
The biggest laugh, it should be said, comes when the preacher’s horny daughter lusts after an older man and says, “When you see snow on the mountaintop, there’s always fire in the furnace!”
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