A poor Midwest family is forced off their land. They travel to California, suffering the misfortunes of the homeless in the Great Depression.
This remarkable film version of Steinbeck’s novel was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including for Best Picture, Actor (Henry Fonda), Film Editing, Sound and Writing. John Ford won the Best Director Oscar and actress Jane Darwell won Best Actress for her portrayal of Ma Joad, the matriarch of the struggling migrant farmer family. Following a prison term he served for manslaughter, Tom Joad returns to find his family homestead overwhelmed by weather and the greed of the banking industry. With little work potential on the horizon of the Oklahoma dust bowls, the entire family packs up and heads for the promised land – California. But the arduous trip and harsh living conditions they encounter offer little hope, and family unity proves as daunting a challenge as any other they face.
“The novel and movie do last, I think, because they are founded in real experience and feeling. My parents were scarred by the Depression, it was a remembered devastation I sensed in their very tones of voice, and “The Grapes of Wrath” shows half a nation with the economic rug pulled out from under it. The story, which seems to be about the resiliency and courage of “the people,” is built on a foundation of fear: Fear of losing jobs, land, self-respect. To those who had felt that fear, who had gone hungry or been homeless, it would never become dated. And its sense of injustice, I believe, is still relevant.” – Roger Ebert
Starring Henry Fonda, Jane Darwell, John Carradine, Charley Grapewin, Dorris Bowdon.
Not rated.
Note: This just slips in as a period drama, as it was made at the start of the Second World War era in 1940.