Tobacco Road (novel) Tobacco Road (novel) Tobacco Road is a 1932 novel by Erskine Caldwell about Georgia sharecroppers. It was dramatized for Broadway by Jack Kirkland in 1933, and ran for eight years, an astounding feat for a non-musical and, as of 2014, it was still the 18th longest-running Broadway show in history as well as being the second-longest running non-musical ever on Broadway. The novel ultimately argues for the sterilization of Georgia's poor whites, as the author's father, Ira Caldwell, had argued in his 1930 article in "The Eugenics Review". A 1941 film version, deliberately played mainly for laughs, was directed by
Tobacco Road (film) teeth in, if you have your teeth." While in production, "Tobacco Road" was thought to be received as even greater than "The Grapes of Wrath". Filming was initially set on location in Georgia, but to avoid any controversy, the studio decided in November 1940 that the film would be shot in the studio on closed sets. To further prevent the film from being banned before its release, there was no publicity. Despite the studio's concerns over the censorship, the film was only banned in Australia for unknown reasons. Although the film received mixed reviews, it became a success at the