Bright Leaf is a 1950 American Drama Western film directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Gary Cooper, Lauren Bacall and Patricia Neal.

Brant Royle (Gary Cooper) returns to his hometown, (fictional) Kingsmont, North Carolina, to settle his uncle's estate.

Many years before, powerful tobacco magnate and cigar-manufacturer Major Singleton (Donald Crisp) drove Brant and his father (now dead) out of town.

Singleton foreclosed on the Royles because they grew the best bright leaf tobacco and because young Brant dared to fall in love with his daughter, Margaret (Patricia Neal).

Inventor John Barton (Jeff Corey) needing financing for his revolutionary cigarette-rolling machine, sees the incident and approaches Royle.

Once a cigarette girl,[a] Sonia has prospered by turning her late mother's house into a high-class bordello.

Barton's invention produces cigarettes at a fraction of the cost of hand rolling, and Royle's company grows by leaps and bounds.

Brant comes hours late to Sonia's birthday party and tells her his plans, blind to the fact that she loves him.

[1] Bosley Crowther of The New York Times observed: "There is a great deal about the tobacco business and its history which is fascinating... the main fault of this drama, so far as flavor is concerned, is that it soon drifts away from the aura of the pungent tobacco industry and becomes just an old-fashioned conflict between a love-crazy man and a pitiless girl...

The screen play by Ranald MacDougall, from Foster Fitz-Simons' book, is a literate piece of writing, with a couple of taut dramatic scenes, but virtually every twist in it can be seen a mile away.

"[3] William Brogdon of Variety wrote "It's overlong and tedious at times in telling its drama of the tobacco industry, love and revenge during the last decade of the 19th century.

"[4] Harrison's Reports similarly wrote: "Adult in dialogue and in treatment, the picture is overlong, plot-heavy and slow-paced, and its theme of love and revenge somewhat unpleasant.

The performances are uniformly good, and there are a number of individual scenes that are outstanding, but there is so much plot and counterplot that, for the most part, the drama fails to come through on the screen with telling emotional impact.

"[5] The film, one of many epic melodramas produced by Hollywood at the time, was widely forgotten after its first theatrical release in 1950.