Furore

Henry Fonda's portrayal of Tom Joad captures perfectly the humanity and compassion of the Steinbeck character, an ex-con who breaks his parole conditions by joining his family in their epic journey across the southern US to a "better life" in California.

This is not the usual Hollywood fare. Tragedy and betrayal beset the Joad family from the outset. But it is nonetheless an uplifting movie. Spirit, compassion and tenderness mark them out. Fonda's role is particularly understated, and we see, as in Steinbeck's masterly epic, the maternally robust figure of Ma holding the family together.

The performances all round are wonderful, and Ford's direction and sense of space under the big sky of the Midwest is breathtaking.

This film is now largely a testament to the time in which it was set, but like the war movies that were soon to follow, a story that needed telling lest we forget.

This classic adaptation of "The Grapes of Wrath" features a fine cast as well as a skillful production headed by director John Ford. Henry Fonda and Jane Darwell are well-remembered for their roles, which are among the defining roles in their careers. The only limitations that it has come from the original novel, with its heartfelt but sometimes contrived story.

Besides Fonda and Darwell, the supporting cast features plenty of good supporting players, including Charley Grapewin and John Carradine. All of them make their characters come alive believably. They also fit together well and complement one another's performances, which accentuates the themes involved in the struggles of the Joad family.

For all that the Steinbeck novel is so revered, and for all that his story is an often compelling depiction of its characters, with whom many in the era could identify, it would have been better if it had not been so heavy-handed. Even given that the times were bad, more balance in the characters outside of the family, and in the Joads' experiences, would have made it an even better story. Certainly, this is barely even noticeable when compared with the stories in many present-day movies and novels, which often dispense with any attempts at plausibility.

And that does not stop this adaptation from being a worthwhile and often moving film. Ford clearly appreciated the potential in the material, and he and the cast work together to make each character count, and to give meaning to each scene.

It's a time that you are glad you were not given, forced from your land to make a big transition, as a journey on jalopy, not at sea but very choppy, presents a family with an awful proposition. It's as if you are a refugee at home, as you're treated like vermin where you all roam, no one cares about your plight, the authorities just fight, encouraging you on your way, so you're just gone. It may get you cogitating on today, that the world has not moved on that much to say, there are those still dispossessed, living a life engulfed by stress, with little help, support or welfare where they stay.

Classic Hollywood films that tried to tackle important issues or answer big questions, typically were cheesy and hard to take seriously. They had gratuitous overacting, fake "Hollywood" dialogue, and just general over dramatization. Since these films are typically over-dramatized in this way, their attempts at having a deeper or meaning or some sort of a message are ruined. But not all classic Hollywood films fall into this abyss of clichés. And the ones that don't are still remembered and cherished to this very day, films like Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, or Modern Times, or 12 Angry Men, faced serious social issues at the time and succeeded. Films like these are unforgettable and in many ways life changing, and John Ford's Grapes of Wrath is one of these precious films.

As I'm sure you all already know Grapes of Wrath is an adaptation of the John Steinbeck Pulitzer Prize winning novel of the same name, that was published only a year before the film was first released. The novel is one of the greatest of the 20th Century, and I highly recommend that you should check it out. The film and the novel are both about Tom Joad, (played by Henry Fonda, who collaborated with John Ford several times.) who returns to his family's home in Oklahoma after spending 4 years in prison, but unfortunately by the time Tom Joad makes it out of prison, the country has fallen into the Great Depression. And the Joad family were unfortunately sharecroppers, so of course the bank repossessed there home and land, and the Joad family are forced to head west to California to look for work. But as they get closer and closer to California things begin to seem hopeless as they learn the truth about what is going on out in the west.

If I were to choose one word to describe The Grapes of Wrath it would be haunting, so many scenes and lines of dialogue send shivers down your spine and make tears grow in the back of your eyes. I won't spoil any of these fantastic moments, but dear god the combination of John Steinbeck's masterful writing and the actors's somber performances combine to make these scenes and lines of dialogues absolutely devastating, you will be thinking about them for weeks after you watch the film. The cinematography (done by the legendary Gregg Toland, who also was the cinematographer for Citizen Kane.) is also outstanding. Shots of the deserted houses in Oklahoma, the wide open road on highway 66, and the overcrowded filthy slums of California, all give The Grapes of Wrath a bleak depressing atmosphere.

Every single actor in the film gives it his/her all, Jane Darwell won the Oscar for best supporting actress for her role as Ma Joad, and Henry Fonda was nominated for best leading actor. And while these two performances are just perfect, every single roll in the film no matter how small is also perfect. (well, except for some minor child-actor roles.) John Ford is an excellent actor director though, so this should come as no surprise. John Ford also won the Oscar for best director, this was his second Oscar (his first was for The Informer.) and it is well deserved, each scene is meticulously crafted to dig real deep into the audiences emotions and not in a way that feels cheap by exploiting the audience or something. No instead of going for cheap shallow emotions the way an Oscar-bait movie would, Grapes of Wrath instead has characters that don't even feel like characters that are going through actual struggles, there is no cheap manipulation in this film. It is 100% genuine.

John Ford was a strange person for 20th century fox to pick to direct The Grapes of Wrath, because he was politically conservative and the book/film supported several liberal political ideas like strikes and unions. But John Ford was definitely the right choice. (see what I did there.) Grapes of Wrath was one of the few American films that was allowed to be released in the Soviet Union,it was only allowed because it supported pro-communist ideas. But it eventually had to be pulled from The Soviet Union when Soviet audiences saw that even dirt-poor begging Americans could still afford cars. In 1989 The Grapes of Wrath was one of the first 25 films to be added to the national film registry, alongside films like Citizen Kane, Vertigo, and Casablanca. And it deserves its spot there, Grapes of Wrath has become the definitive Great Depression film, and should be viewed by everyone.

9.5/10

John Ford's film of John Steinbeck's novel has deservedly a classic film mirroring the views of both men and the times the book was written and filmed. Ford won his second Oscar for Best Director and Jane Darwell was the Best Supporting Actress of 1940.

For most of America the Depression started with the stock market crash of 1929. But for the farmers it really began at the end of World War I. Those were good years for agriculture, the war in Europe was a boom for agriculture. But when farm prices dropped after the Armistice, a whole lot of family farms went belly up. Lots of people left the farms for the big city and industry jobs. The Depression years unhappily coincided with some of the worst drought ever seen in America.

This is what many families like the Joads were facing in 1939 when the book was written. The banks had foreclosed on land that had withered to dust in any event. Folks like the Joads picked up and moved elsewhere, like California on a rumor of prosperity and jobs.

America was still changing from an agricultural to an industrial society back then. That causes a lot of trouble for people unskilled in any industrial job training. As a country we're going through something similar today in many areas. We're moving from an industrial to an information based economy. Industry jobs are being lost to other nations and older and poorer workers are suffering for it. It's progress I guess, but it takes its toll.

Some factory worker who has lost his job for any number of reasons can identify to some degree with the Joads, especially if they've lost a home they owned. For the Joads it was worse because they made their living off the land for many generations, identifying with it in a way that industrial workers could not.

Henry Fonda got his first Oscar nomination for Tom Joad. To get the part which he knew he was so right for, he signed a studio contract with 20th Century Fox. That caused him many problems later on, but those are stories for another film review.

Tom Joad is a midwest country kid, a whole lot like Fonda himself. Part of the story of The Grapes of Wrath is Tom himself trying to figure out why these economic forces are crushing him and his family and the way of life he's known. In the end when he leaves the Joad family and hits the open road, he's not got all the answers, but he's asking the questions. Tom hasn't figured it out, but a lot of people with many letters after their names haven't either. He only knows that he's got to get in the fight for economic justice.

Jane Darwell was in films from the earliest silent films to Mary Poppins in 1965. This became her career part and the mother role of all time. She's what holds the Joad family together in good times and bad. That's what moms do and get little recognition for it. Except in this case by the Motion Picture Academy.

John Carradine has his career part in this also. Another John Ford favorite, Carradine plays Casy the defrocked preacher who as he tells it disgraced himself with a female parishioner. After that preaching the gospel didn't seem quite right. When Fonda meets Carradine after Fonda's been released from prison, Carradine is asking a lot of questions about what is man's place in the metaphysical scheme of things. He's developing what we would now call situational ethics. Carradine's questions are on a higher plane, but he certainly inspires Fonda to ask for some answers himself.

The Grapes of Wrath illustrates that at least government can give first aid in a crisis. After being in privately run agricultural camps where they're treated like less than dirt, the Joads happen upon a camp run by the Department of Agriculture where at least they're treated like humans. As it turns out, the Secretary of Agriculture was one Henry A. Wallace who was running for Vice President that year with Franklin D. Roosevelt. I'll bet any number of people saw The Grapes of Wrath and saw a message of support for FDR and the New Deal.

Given some of the problems of the American economy today, The Grapes of Wrath though it appears dated isn't really all that much a relic of our past. It's both a timeless book and a timeless classic film.