And the people continue to go on.....

Rating: 10/10 (13 August 2008)

John Ford directed some classics, and this might be his best. The Grapes of Wrath is of course based on John Steinbeck's seminal novel about the hardships of the Great Depression on Oklahoma sharecroppers forced to migrate to Californian for menial work. The film paints a stark picture of perhaps our country's most bleak period. A time when unemployment was around 25%, dust was choking off normally reliable farmland, and simply finding enough food to eat could be nearly impossible.This film was actually made when these kinds of conditions were still ravaging the United States. It would not be until the end of WWII that happiness on a large scale would be found once again within our borders.
The film itself is skillfully made and acted. Some of the edgier elements of Steinbeck's novel could not be included in a film in 1940, but the audience will still have no trouble understanding the dire circumstances these characters face. This film basically made Henry Fonda a star, and he may have never been better. Fonda stars as Tom Joad. Joad is portrayed in the film's earlier moments as kind of a shiftless and violent type who has just been let out of jail where he had been sent for killing a man. He seems to want to brag about this to a truck driver who gives him a ride out to his family's farm. Once he gets there, he encounters a washed-up preacher named Casey who is played by John Carradine. It seems that since Tom has been away, things have gotten so bad in rural Oklahoma that even preachers are losing faith. Tom Joad then learns that his family, among several others, have been ordered off their farms by either banks or faceless corporations that own them. Tom Joad has to grow up pretty quick after meeting up with his family members, and soon enough they load themselves and their belongings into an old truck and are headed out to California to find work.
The Joads encounter all sorts of hardships and prejudice on their journey, and things are even worse once they arrive in California. It seems that work is harder to find than they were led to believe, and the work there is doesn't pay worth a damn. Anyone who speaks out is likely to get beat over the head with an ax handle and killed. People are starving everywhere, and nobody in authority seems like they care. For a moment, the Joads seem to find a sanctuary in a government-run campground, but by this time, Tom Joad's fate is already pretty much determined. For reasons you will have to see for yourself, Tom Joad knows that he will have to spend the rest of his life on the run. And hopefully, he or his spirit will be able to help the "little guy" whenever he can. His goodbye scene with his mother is poignant, and it will touch even the most stone-hearted members of any audience.
The picture looks great. B/W has never looked this good. Even though some of the sets were obviously sound stages, you won't really mind. Except maybe the scene where Fonda and Carradine are walking up the land to the Joad farm. You can actually hear their voices echo off the walls and ceiling! The film is preachy, but these were desperate times back then. To a guy who is starving and cannot feed his family, socialist dogma must have sounded pretty good. All of the performances ring true, including Jane Darwell as Tom's mother. She won an Oscar, as did director Ford. The film is bleak, but in its final frames there is a definite twinge of optimism. This is key because when the film was made, nobody yet knew of the prosperity yet to come. Pearl Harbor had not even happened. The film definitely scores points for ending with an upbeat theme and showing its faith in the people. Because after all, we the people keep on keepin' on! 10 of 10 stars.
The Hound.