"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...and when the people are eatin' the stuff they raise and livin' in the houses they build, I'll be there, too."
The Grapes of Wrath (1940) is an American drama film directed by Academy Award Winner Best Director, John Ford. It was based on the Pulitzer Prize winning The Grapes of Wrath (1939), written by John Steinbeck. The screenplay was written by Nunnally Johnson and the executive producer was Darryl F. Zanuck.[1]
The film tells the story of the Joads, an Oklahoma family, who, after losing their farm during the Great Depression in the 1930s, become migrant workers and end up in California. The motion picture details their arduous journey across the United States as they travel to California in search for work and opportunities for the family members.
In 1989, this film was one of the first 25 films to be selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Some analysts believe the "myth of the Okies", helped created by John Steinbeck's novel, is a mistake. As such, they argue the film's story rings false. The movie was banned in the Soviet Union (USSR) by Josef Stalin after being shown in Poland because of the depiction that even the poorest Americans could afford a car.
"The Grapes of Wrath" (1940) is the iconic story of young Tom Joad and the Okie farmers who were forced off the Great Plains of the Oklahoma & Northern Texas panhandles by big business's industrialized farming and Mother Nature's "great dust bowl" of the 1930's.
It's a very emotionally stirring film--Woody Guthrie's famous ode "Red River Valley" accompanies the narrative throughout--I watched it the other morning and I get a little choked-up everytime I see the Joads bury "Grandpa" on the side of the road on their way out of Oklahoma. And I can't believe that Henry Fonda didn't win the Academy Award best that year. Correct me if I'm wrong--ronnierocket--but Fonda not winning an Oscar for his portrayal of the now infamous Tom Joad is one of the great travesties in Academy Award history.
I'm also quite familiar with Steinbeck's original novel if anyone wants to discuss the differences between the two. The novel ends a bit differently as Tom Joad's sister Rosie (aka Rose Of, per novel) Sharon and her baby play a bigger role in the finale.
One of the first films ever inducted in the American Film Archives: it's one of the great politcal, and populist statements from that time period. Here's a great video review from the NYT ops:
