This film is the reason Ms. Davis didn't play Scarlett, as it would have been a rerun. She has it down pat in her performance in this movie. While she had so many great performances in her career very few top this one.<br /><br />Henry Fonda is young in this film but very effective playing opposite as the male lead. The film accidentally has a valuable historic lesson today's environmentalist chooses to ignore. A fair piece of the plot centers around the fact that a plague (fever) type of illness is running through the South & killing a lot of people.<br /><br />Fondas character is shown being bitten by a mosquito at one point in the movie. He then becomes ill with the plague & dies. After he is bitten, Fonda's character says "Maybe with all these people getting sick & dying, the Yankees up North have a good idea about draining all their swamps." <br /><br />Today environmentalists are trying to save wetlands but in order to do that they are ignoring the health risks to people living near them (today West Nile Virus). This proves there has to be a balance between preserving wetlands where there are not people living but making sure they don't exist too close to civilization either. Going to extremes by preserving wetlands in populated areas is dangerous.<br /><br />This movie is very well made for 1938, & Ms. Davis has one of her strongest early performances in her career.