136. The Grapes Of Wrath (1940)

Directed By John Ford

Synopsis

Tommy rhymes with commie, and after a gruelling exodus from Okieland to California looking for work after being evicted, Tommy goes on to pursue the cause of worker rights and other disgusting Red behaviour, while his family goes off to pick some cotton for the generous value of a nickel a ton... they should be thankful! Fucking proles.

Review

This is a superb film, the story is quite ballsy for 1940, showing the abuse and horrible plight of the people who left the dustbowl for a better life in the West, as any film dealing with oppression and suffering of an underclass it sounds a bit too workers of the world unite for the prevailing tastes of the 1940's. And that is part of the film's charm.

If ever there was a director who was ballsy that is John Ford, you can't take that away form him. The film isn't worth it solely for its politics, however, it is extremely well filmed, the cinematography is surprisingly dark for the time, and some of the camera plans are extremely beautiful, particularly when there are just silhouettes against the big sky or a man walking alone on a highway...

The film is also superbly cast, Henry Fonda is great, but so is Ma, played by Jane Darwell, they are also given some of those amazing set piece monologues which are really well written. The film is harrowing but not as much as the book, the 1940's were a tame era, if this film had been done at any other time with a lot more freedom and no production code we can only imagine how good it would have been. Get it from Amazon UK or US.

Final Grade

10/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Pre-production

Producer Daryl F. Zanuck was nervous about the hard left political view found in the novel, especially the ending. Due to the red-baiting common of the era, Daryl Zanuck sent private investigators to Oklahoma to help legitimize the film. When Zanuck's investigators found the "Okies" predicament was indeed terrible, Zanuck was confident he could defend attacks that the film was somehow pro-Communist.

Still, Zanuck watered down the novel's tone for the film and as a consequence did much to sell the fictional Joads story to the general public in the United States. In addition, critic Roger Ebert believes that due to Adolf Hitler's rising to power in Europe in the 1930s, Communism enjoyed a respite from "American demonology," at least for a brief time.

Odd production bedfellows

Both executive producer Daryl Zanuck and director John Ford were odd choices to make this film because both were considered politically very conservative.

One of the great monologues in the film: