The Grapes of Wrath (1940)

Few American pictures made in the 1930a got to grips with the suffering and dislocation of the Great Depression. Hollywood largely left it to other media such as theater, novels, and photography to document the national disaster. John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath, first published in 1939, was based on solid research following dispossessed farming families in Oklahoma as they journeyed to the orchards of California in search of casual labor.

Despite objections from conservative financiers who controlled the studio, Darryl Zanuck bought the book for 20th Century Fox. He knew that John Ford was the right man to direct it, with his feeling for the American people and their history. Ford also identified what was most heartbreaking about the plight of the Joad family - not acute poverty, but psychological trauma of being uprooted from their home, of being cast out on the road, rootless. In a memorable scene Ma Joad (Jane Darwell) burns the possessions she can't take with her the night before they must abandon their farm.

For his hero, Tom Joad, Ford cast Henry Fonda. Members of the unofficial John Ford Stock Company to appear included Russell Simpson as Pa Joad, John Qualen as their friend Muley, and John Carradine as an itinerant preacher. And for his cameraman Ford made an inspired choice. Gregg Toland captured brilliantly the documentary look of the pictures that had been taken of the dustbowl tragedy by government employed photographers. Nowhere is this better seen than in a sequence where the Joads drive into a squatters camp, the camera dwelling on the grim faces of the occupants and on the run-down shacks where they live.

Though The Grapes of Wrath does not shirk from showing the full enormity of its subjects' plight, there is a significant departure from the novel. In Steinbeck's book the Joads first find easier conditions in a government-run camp, but by the end are reduced to starvation wages. In the film, they find government camp later on, thus making their progress an upward curve, marked by Ma's final speech: "We're the people... We'll go on forever."

And I can't go with out mentioning Fonda's amazingly delivered speech as he is leaving his family behind. Very memorable.

Quote of the Day - Tom Joad - "I'll be all around in the dark - I'll be everywhere. Wherever you can look - wherever there's a fight, so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever there's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there. I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad. I'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry and they know supper's ready, and when the people are eatin' the stuff they raise and livin' in the houses they build - I'll be there, too."

Tomorrow: The Quiet Man (1952)