The Grapes of Wrath (1940)

This is a beautiful looking film with lots of wonderful acting performances! It's one of the rare times that a classic book has been turned into a classic movie, in my opinion! John Ford really captures the essence of the novel, even if some big parts are left out. And when Henry Fonda delivers that "I'll be there" speech near the end, well that's just cinema gold! It's not better than the book, but it sure can stand proud!

As subjective as it may seem, I cannot avoid making the comment this film was a bit boring. Painful to watch. There's a strain that the narrative builds over the watcher, the pressures of an incredibly tough and depressing series of life events, where a viewer may be left thinking: "well I don't have an issue with dramas or tough films, but why focus on such difficult and common life events ?" It's one of these things about historical movies - a particular event having occurred doesn't necessarily make for a great film plot or story to tell. The incredibly rough Great Depression years were awful and all, sure, but to make 2 hours plus of film based on the Steinbeck novel... this is like an American Emile Zola, an American Germinal. That monotonous old naturalism/realism narrative of exploring the misery of the working class... why, out of everything else there is to write about or make a film about... You'd ask yourself why an author would focus all his energy on something so bleak and real, there's such a lack of fantasy, the story telling is just totally flat and linear. What, we're barely given 30 seconds of poetry at the end from Fonda and then a speech from the mother in that last scene, but 2hrs10 for that ?...Good film. Tough to watch. 6.5/10.

John Ford won the second of his record four Best Director Academy Awards for this Depression era drama from John Steinbeck's novel about the Joads, and other families of Oklahoma sharecroppers whose decades old farms were destroyed by the Dust Bowl, their migration west (in an overloaded jalopy-truck) to California, a place purported to be "the land of milk and honey", and their disillusionment about the American dream.Jane Darwell won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar (on her only nomination) for her role as Ma Joad, the family matriarch whose last words are perhaps the film's most optimistic. Henry Fonda received his first nomination (Best Actor) as Tom Joad (voted AFI's #12 hero, even though his character is an ex-con that struggles to stay out of trouble during much of the story).Produced by Darryl F. Zanuck, the film was nominated for Best Picture, so was its Editing (Robert L. Simpson's only Academy recognition), Sound, and associate producer Nunnally Johnson's screenplay. It appears at #21 on AFI's Greatest Movies list, #7 on AFI's 100 Most Inspiring Movies list, and was added to the National Film Registry in 1989.The cast is chock full of recognizable character actors whose performances – along with Gregg Toland's dark cinematography – help to convey the squalid conditions of the situation and bleak outlook of the time. John Carradine plays the former preacher Casy, who makes the journey with the Joads. Charley Grapewin plays Grandpa, whose depression about his reality contributes to his failing health, while Russell Simpson plays his son and Fonda's Pa Joad.John Qualen gives the best of his prolific career as Muley, whose driven crazy by losing the land he and his family had tended for 70 years. Others in the credited cast are Dorris Bowdon, O.Z. Whitehead, Eddie Quillan, Zeffie Tilbury, Frank Sully, Frank Darien, child actor Darryl Hickman, Grant Mitchell as the caretaker of a most unusual (almost commune-like) Department of Agriculture facility, Ford company regular Ward Bond as a policeman, Selmer Jackson, Charles Middleton, Paul Guilfoyle as an agitator, Cliff Clark, Joe Sawyer, Frank Faylen, and Irving Bacon.

Tom Joad (Henry Fonda) has recently been released from prison and returns to his family home to discover that his family have been kicked off their land as it has been bought out by greedy developers. Joad and his family head to California to start a new life, but this journey proves to have more hazards and pitfalls than they could ever have anticipated.The Grapes Of Wrath is a film adaptation based on the John Steinbeck novel. I'll start by saying that I haven't read the book, but I can safely say that the 'cinematic' version of the book fell well below my expectations....For starters the film takes an immensely long time to get going (one could actually argue as to whether it ever gets going). The problem is that the first half is awfully slow and dull with very little happening to drive the narrative forward. To me, The Grapes Of The Wrath came across as a character-driven film but when the film is filled with uninteresting and poorly developed characters it became very hard for me to remain interested or give a damn about anything that happens to them on their journey to California.The second half of the film is slightly better (in the sense that it has a bit more urgency about it). Although the better pacing made the second half more tolerable than the first half I still felt that the whole film had a superficial feel to it - we get to see glimpses of the suffering and pain that has been bestowed upon the family, but it's never really examined in much depth and this resulted in a film that just never seemed to take advantage of all of its potential.The cast are all OK and whilst Fonda wasn't particularly brilliant here I appreciated that he tried to give the film some emotional weight (which again probably would have worked better if both the narrative and character dynamics had been stronger and more interesting).So yes I didn't like this film but will say that this was more down to the slow-paced first half, poor characterisation and the missed potential in fleshing the story out and making it more interesting.