Steinbeck classic

Rating: 8/10 (22 March 2012)

Starting with John Steinbeck's classic novel of the Depression and migration of families from Texas and Oklahoma due to the dust bowl and subsequent drought, the grapes of wrath brings the pain and suffering of the farmers to the big screen. Huge numbers of migrants had the misfortune of living through both the stock market crash and its aftermath and the lack of rain which left thousands of empty farms.
Narrated by Tom Joad, a man who has just been released from prison and returns to the family farm only to find it abandoned. He meets up with a former preacher, Jim Casey, and they venture out on the road. What they find is not pretty as the banks have foreclosed on countless properties and the rumor spreads that California is a perfect destination for good, high paying jobs. Unfortunately, the employers have sent out many more fliers than people needed for the work and use the oversupply to keep wages low. In order to force a living wage, attempts are made to form unions , which results in violence between starving transients living in camps and the owners who call them reds or communists.
The book is one of the finest works of American literature and director John Ford retains the spirit of the novel using Henry Fonda as every man in the defining character, Tom Joad. John Carradine is also well cast as the doubting former preacher, Jim Casey. The mood is ominous but at the same time hopeful of a better time yet to come. We need to be reminded of our past mistakes in order to avoid repeating them, and this film is a good history lesson.