The Grapes of Wrath (1940)

Although unconventional, the movie is without doubt a classic. It is one of the few movies of the time that dealt with the national disaster that was the Great Depression, a subject that Hollywood in general tried to avoid, and it contains memorable performances, from Henry Fonda and Jane Darwell in particular.

The movie was a great success critically and also commercially, becoming one of Fox's biggest earners of 1940. It was nominated for a total of seven Academy Awards, winning two, for Best Director (John Ford) and Best Supporting Actress (Jane Darwell). On the American Film Institute's list of top 100 Movies it is ranked at number 23.

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Plot

The movie is harsh and ruthless in the way it bleakly depicts the cruel treatment of the family on their long journey and we are left in no doubt that the Joads are not an isolated case but typical of the thousands of families uprooted and forced to move west to California.

The bleakness of the story is alleviated from time to time by humorous glimpses of the human side of the family, such as when the children discover flushing toilets for the first time, at the Government camp. The movie does make one significant departure from the Steinbeck novel. In the book the Joads' situation gradually gets worse until they are reduced to starvation wages. In the film the family finds the government camp much later on than in the book. It was a small but important change and enabled what had been a tragic film to end on an upbeat note, marked by Ma Joad's final speech: 'We're the people...We'll go on forever.'

Production

In 1939 John Ford had directed three magnificent movies: 'Stagecoach', 'Young Mr. Lincoln' and 'Drums Along the Mohawk'. He received the script for 'The Grapes of Wrath' while filming 'Drums Along the Mohawk' and agreed to direct it because the Joads' journey reminded him of his own family's plight in Ireland during the potato famine of the previous century. The movie was filmed at the end of 1939, within the same 12 months as the previous three, and marked the culmination and high point of a quite amazing year of cinematic creativity.

Ford made the inspired choice of cameraman in Greg Toland who was to achieve fame the following year for his work on 'Citizen Kane'. He used deep-focus photography and low-key lighting to emphasise shadows and darkness, techniques that would later inspire film noir. He used the style of the famous photographs of the government-employed Farm Security Administration to capture a documentary feel to the tragic story. This can be best seen in a sequence where the Joads drive into a squatters camp. The actors are without the usual artifices of makeup or diffusion and come across realistically as tough, uncompromising Dust Bowlers.

Zanuck and Ford cast Henry Fonda in the much-coveted role of Tom Joad with the stipulation that he star in seven other films for the studio. Beulah Bondi was Ford's choice to play Ma, but Zanuck argued for the earthy Jane Darwell, already under contract at Fox.

After only four weeks of pre-production, Ford and Gregg Toland started shooting on a tight schedule, mostly on Fox studio sets. Otto Brower's second unit traveled the Okies' route for footage of the actual sites that the original Okies had used. Zanuck wanted the sound to match the authenticity of the picture and invested in a six-man crew to drive to Oklahoma and capture the noise of a real jalopy. While those expensive effects were never used, Zanuck's choice of an accordion version of "Red River Valley" became the movie's theme song. Ford claimed he also let Zanuck direct Ma's final, uplifting soliloquy when the producer deemed Ford's original ending of Tom walking away too depressing.

Message

It is John Ford's great achievement that he can make such ugly and traumatic subject matter, still fresh in the minds of the moviegoing public, so entertaining. He dealt sensitively with the plight of the migrant families whilst not diluting the brutality of their treatment by their fellow countrymen.and did not stint on showing the unpleasantness and callousness of some of their fellow Americans. His movie is a masterpiece, proof that the moving image can be a document of social change as well as a beautiful and engrossing work of art.