The Grapes Of Wrath

Cast View all

	Henry Fonda	Tom Joad
	Jane Darwell	Ma Joad
	John Carradine	Casy
	Charley Grapewin	Grandpa
	Dorris Bowdon	Rosasharn
	Russell Simpson	Pa Joad
	O.Z. Whitehead	Al
	John Qualen	Muley
	Eddie Quillan	Connie
	Zeffie Tilbury	Grandma
	Frank Sully	Noah
	Frank Darien	Uncle John
	Darryl Hickman	Winfield
	Shirley Mills	Ruth Joad
	Roger Imhof	Thomas
	Grant Mitchell	Caretaker
	Charles D. Brown	Wilkie
	John Arledge	Davis
	Ward Bond	Policeman
	Harry Tyler	Bert
	William Pawley	Bill
	Charles Tannen	Joe
	Selmer Jackson	Inspection Officer
	Charles Middleton	Leader
	Eddy Waller	Proprietor

Crew View all

Director	John Ford
Writer	Nunnally Johnson, John Steinbeck
Producer	Nunnally Johnson, Darryl F. Zanuck
Musician	Alfred Newman
Photography	Gregg Toland

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Notes

An American classic, The Grapes of Wrath is John Steinbeck’s greatest novel. Set in the 1930s during the Great Depression, the story is about an Oklahoma farm family that is forced to leave their home and travel to California in order to find work. The novel portrays the arduous life of the Dust Bowl migrants. His honesty, his love and sympathy for each character, and clear understanding of the human plight during this time period earned Steinbeck a Pulitzer Prize in 1940 and a Nobel Prize in 1962.

Though the 1940 release of The Grapes of Wrath cuts off considerable amounts of events that take place in the novel, director John Ford successfully recreates the story in the film and manages to show the trails and tribulations the migrants faced day in and day out. The story is about the Joad family that is forced to leave their home in Oklahoma. They decide to head to California after seeing an advertisement claiming to need 800 workers to work in a farm for high wages.

Immediately after reaching California, the family learns that this is really not the case and begins to face difficult times in a new world. Work is hard to find and the jobs they do manage to find don’t pay enough to feed the family. Furthermore, Tom Joad (Henry Fonda), who is on parole for homicide, continues to get into more and more trouble, though his crimes are never ill intended.

The film captures the courage that the Dust Bowl migrants had in order to face pain and oppression. Henry Fonda beautifully plays Tom Joad, who is unwilling to put with misfortune and unfair “laws” that keep him and his family from being able to survive. He is dedicated to righteousness and powerfully states it in the famous “I’ll be everywhere” speech. Another important character is Ma Joad (Jane Darwell) is amazing in the film. She is the backbone of the family and she tries as hard as she can to hold her family together. No one really understands the importance of the working class as well as she does and she sums it up in the famous finishing lines of the film.

It’s easy for a person to understand the difficulties the working class faces during tough time and thus one feels sympathy for each character. The way the novel is structured is interesting. Steinbeck alternates between the experiences of the Joad family with corollaries that explain the background and situations that all migrants faced during that time in painstaking detail. This way, readers are able to know and understand the social ramifications that lead the Joad family to do what they do. It’s difficult and confusing to structure a film in the same say, so it is up to the reader to actually understand some of the history behind the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. The film focuses only on the Joad family. It’s very easy for the viewer to understand the difficulties the working class faces during the tough times and one feels sympathy for each character without knowing the history. However, it would be to the viewer’s advantage to actually learn a little about that era in order to truly empathize for the characters and get a clear understanding of the social situation during that period. Then the viewer will get a better understanding of the troubles that the migrants were facing. Knowing the history makes the film all the more powerful.

This film is great. It clearly shows that there is compassion and dignity in the world even when its filled with adversity and injustice. This film was nominated for five Academy Awards including Best Film. It won Best Supporting Actress (Jane Darwell) and Best Director (John Ford). It is also on the American Film Institute’s to 100 Greatest Films list.

This movie came with several special features:
• Original Theatrical Trailer
• Fox Movietone News: It contains news broadcasts that show the exact troubles people of the time faced. It’s a wonderful complement with the movie, that takes place during the time, and adds more detail into the lives of people during the depression.
• Still Gallery: It contains still images that were taken during the sets of the movie.
• Restoration Comparison: It provides descriptions of exactly how the film was restored into its original form.
• Commentaries by Steinbeck Scholars: Film scholars Joseph McBride and Susan Shillinglaw comment on the film, the novel and the author.
• UK Prologue

This movie is definitely a good buy. It runs a little more than two hours, and delivers a very well suited cast. This movie is a true American classic. It is definitely worth watching.

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