‎The Grapes of Wrath (1940) directed by John Ford • Reviews, film + cast • Letterboxd Review by CinemaClown ★★★½ Painting a gritty yet authentic portrait of family life ravaged by economic hardships, The Grapes of Wrath covers the strenuous ordeal faced by one family as it struggles to keep itself together when everything around them is falling apart. Steered by John Ford's assured direction & powered by a couple of stellar performances, it remains one of the most memorable works of its era. Set during the Great Depression, the story of The Grapes of Wrath follows Tom Joad who's out of prison on parole, only to find that his family has been forced off their own land. Managing to reunite with them eventually, Tom & the Joad family set off to California in search for better work, opportunities & a hopeful future… If there was a law, they was workin' with maybe we could take it, but it ain't the law. They're workin' away our spirits, tryin' to make us cringe and crawl, takin' away our decency.

-Tom Joad John Ford the man that had made a career off of films depicting the beginning of the American Dream and the conquering of the West, here adapts John Steinbeck 's novel depicting the end of that dream. I'm in awe at how a film that should be just the most depressing viewing experience imaginable could turn out to be so engrossing. One of the primary reasons, but not the only one, is the incredible performance by Henry Fonda as Tom Joad. One of the… August 2016: Scavenger Hunt #17 TASK #29: A film matching at least two of the criteria from tasks 1-28! A great film, based on the great John Steinbeck book of the same name, from one of the considered greatest directors of all time. The Grapes of Wrath is an amazing drama depicting the fall of the American Dream. This is probably one of the most depressing films I've ever seen, but it's depressing in a way that's genuine and emotionally investing, unlike films such as Remember Me, a drama that's depressing for the sake of being depressing.

I haven't seen a John Ford film prior to this, but this is one hell of an introduction to his work for me.… 2 **Part of the Best Picture Project** Adapting a classic American novel isn't always easy, but adapting John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath would be impossible for most filmmakers. So it's up to none other than the legendary John Ford to turn Steinbeck's sprawling novel into a 2 hour film that works in every way the novel does. In fact, everything good about the film can be attributed to Ford's careful direction. While his other films have a breakneck pace, this one opts for a much more slower pace to give way to just how grueling the journey of the Joads is. Nobody could shoot a film like Ford. The lighting work on this film is magnificent (something the Blu Ray helps… Review by Daniel Ohlander ★★★★ One of the most depressing films I've ever seen, from the first scene to the last it's all about misery and the depression in the USA during the early part of the twentieth century. The novel written by John Steinbeck is here adapted to film by one of the best directors of all time, John Ford, whom won an Academy Award for this film.

The film stars Henry Fonda as the son of the big Joad family, Jane Darwell plays his mother and won the Oscar for best supporting actress. Fonda got his first Oscars nomination for this film, but had to wait 41 years before he won his first Oscar for "On the Golden Pond". One of the last… Review by Daniel ★★★★ Ich kenne keine schärferer Kapitalismuskritik aus Hollywood. Der Film hatte meine Aufmerksamkeit ab der zweiten Szene gefangen: In dieser tritt der ehemalige Priester Jim Casy auf und erzählt, wie die mit der Weltwirtschaftskrise verbundenen Ungerechtigkeiten ihn haben vom Glauben abfallen lassen. Eine Szene, die gleichzeitig Religion und Markt kritisiert, habe ich zuvor noch nie gesehen. Und genauso geht es weiter: The Grapes of Wrath könnte auch nach der Finanzkrise 2007 spielen. Der Film ist das wesentlich interessantere Gegenstück zu The Big Short.

Denn hier sehen wir kleine Leute, die alles verlieren, was sie haben und wenn sie versuchen, herauszufinden, wer verantwortlich ist, stoßen sie nur auf annonyme Unternehmen. Wir sehen, wie die Krise zu nur noch mehr Ausbeutung führt, da… Review by Brian ★★★★½ "Seems like the government's got more interest in a dead man than a live one." Absolutely masterful work from John Ford that gives a voice to the laborer and the working man. The scene of Ma Joad standing over a pot with over a dozen children staring on, hoping to get something to eat, is certain to stay with the viewer, as will the scene of Ma Joad packing up what few things she has in Oklahoma in preparation for the journey out west.

Jane Darwell as Ma Joad won Best Supporting Actress for this role, and it isn't hard to see why - while the story is focused on Tom Joad, it is Ma who gives more of a… The Grapes of Wrath (1940) - IMDb IMDb 17 January 2017 4:34 PM, UTC NEWS There was an error trying to load your rating for this title. Some parts of this page won't work property. Please reload or try later. X Beta I'm Watching This! Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. Error The Grapes of Wrath ( 1940 ) Approved | A poor Midwest family is forced off of their land. They travel to California, suffering the misfortunes of the homeless in the Great Depression.

Director: Nunnally Johnson (screen play), John Steinbeck (based on the novel by) Stars: a list of 47 titles created 18 Aug 2011 a list of 21 titles created 17 Mar 2012 a list of 33 titles created 11 Dec 2014 a list of 35 titles created 09 May 2015 a list of 42 titles created 2 weeks ago Title: The Grapes of Wrath (1940) 8.1/10 Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. Won 2 Oscars. Another 7 wins & 5 nominations. See more awards » Videos Three World War II veterans return home to small-town America to discover that they and their families have been irreparably changed. Director: William Wyler Fred Dobbs and Bob Curtin, two Americans searching for work in Mexico, convince an old prospector to help them mine for gold in the Sierra Madre Mountains. Director: John Huston A naive man is appointed to fill a vacancy in the United States Senate.

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Directors: Clyde Bruckman, Buster Keaton Stars: Buster Keaton, Marion Mack, Glen Cavender A self-conscious bride is tormented by the memory of her husband's dead first wife. Director: Alfred Hitchcock A senator, who became famous for killing a notorious outlaw, returns for the funeral of an old friend and tells the truth about his deed. Director: John Ford Edit Storyline Tom Joad returns to his home after a jail sentence to find his family kicked out of their farm due to foreclosure. He catches up with them on his Uncles farm, and joins them the next day as they head for California and a new life... Hopefully. Written by Colin Tinto <cst@imdb.com> See All (117) » Taglines: The thousands who have read the book will know why WE WILL NOT SELL ANY CHILDREN TICKETS to see this picture! See more » Genres: 15 March 1940 (USA) See more » Also Known As: Mono (Western Electric Mirrophonic Recording) Color: Did You Know? Trivia The production had a fake working title, "Highway 66", so that the shoot of the controversial novel would not be affected by union problems.

Much of the dire straits portrayed in the film continued during and after the release of the movie. See more » Goofs The same shot, from slightly different angles, of the Joads' truck crossing the desert at night is used twice, showing a single large cactus in the foreground and three sets of lights in a row on a mountain in the distance. See more » Quotes She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain (uncredited) User Reviews John Ford's stark portrayal of a poor family in the depression remains one of the most moving films in history. (Luoyang, China) – See all my reviews The Grapes of Wrath is the story of the Joad family, who are run off of their land in Oklahoma because of drought and poverty. I think that one of the most striking elements of this movie is the black and white cinematography. Obviously, there wasn't a lot of variation on this particular subject in 1940, but especially today, the lack of color enhances the feelings of poverty and desperation and emptiness due to the family's loss of their home.

In this way, because it would not be nearly as noticeable in 1940 as it is today, this time-enhanced effect of the black and white film stock has allowed for the film's impact to actually grow with time. Henry Fonda plays the part of Tom Joad, a young member of the family who is released from prison at the beginning of the film, only to find that his family has been driven from their home and is staying at his uncle's house until they can figure out what to do about their sudden homelessness. It is by pure coincidence that Tom was released early on good behavior, otherwise he may very well never have seen his family again. He finds them in a state of near desperation, as they begin more and more to realize the predicament that they are in. Their trek across half of the country, on their way to California to assume jobs that they've heard about, provides for a substantial portion of the plot and is extremely well-structured. The family encounters every hardship imaginable on this journey, from family members dying to their struggle to feed themselves to their rickety old truck constantly breaking down.

They run into disillusioned people who claim that they've been to California and there are really no jobs there, at least not nearly as many as there are people going to look for them. They are periodically and derogatorily referred to as `Okies,' a term which places them in a broad category of poor folks driven from there homes in middle America who are traveling to the coast to get jobs that aren't there. There is so much doubt and hardship presented that it is never really certain whether they really will find jobs. The audience is never able to assume a happy ending, because there is so much contrary foreshadowing throughout the film. The struggles do not abate once the family reaches California and takes up shaky residence in residential areas that would be more accurately referred to as shanty towns, and the rest of the film is dominated by the family's efforts to survive in a new and unfamiliar place, while working for wages that are barely sufficient to prevent starvation.

Ma Joad spends the majority of the film stressing the importance of keeping the family together, seeing it as the only thing that they really had left, but this is eventually set aside in favor of each member of the family not only surviving but also flourishing, which provides for one of the many powerful messages that the film delivers. The Grapes of Wrath is not exactly an edge of your seat film, but it is a shockingly realistic portrayal of the suffering that so many people and families experienced during the Great Depression. The performances are flawless, and the experience is not only powerful and moving but also educational. It's no secret that most people do not watch movies to learn, but there comes a point, at least once in a great while, when a person should watch a film that requires a little mental thought processing, and in such cases, The Grapes of Wrath is an excellent choice. 108 of 126 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you?

Yes The Grapes of Wrath Movie Review (1940) | Roger Ebert Tweet John Ford 's "The Grapes of Wrath" is a left-wing parable, directed by a right-wing American director, about how a sharecropper's son, a barroom brawler, is converted into a union organizer. The message is boldly displayed, but told with characters of such sympathy and images of such beauty that audiences leave the theater feeling more pity than anger or resolve. It's a message movie, but not a recruiting poster. Advertisement The ideological journey of the hero, Tom Joad, can be seen by the two killings he is responsible for. The first one takes place in a saloon before the action begins, and Tom describes it to a former preacher: "We was drunk. He got a knife in me and I laid him out with a shovel. Knocked his head plum to squash." After serving four years, Tom is paroled and returns to his family farm in Oklahoma, only to learn the Joads have been "tractored off the land" and are joining the desperate migration to California.

Near the end of the film, after seeing deputies and thugs beat and shoot at strikers, he is once again attacked, this time by a "tin badge" with a club. He snatches away the club, and kills him. The lesson is clear: Tom has learned who his real enemies are, and is working now with more deserving targets. The movie was based on John Steinbeck's novel, arguably the most effective social document of the 1930s, and it was directed by a filmmaker who had done more than any other to document the Westward movement of American settlement. John Ford was the director of "The Iron Horse" (1924), about the dream of a railroad to the West, and made many other films about the white migration into Indian lands, including his Cavalry trilogy ("Fort Apache," "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon," "Rio Grande"). "The Grapes of Wrath" tells the sad end of the dream. The small shareholders who staked their claims 50 years earlier are forced off their land by bankers and big landholders. "Who's the Shawnee Land and Cattle Company?" asks Muley, a neighbor of the Joads who refuses to sell.

"It ain't anybody," says a land agent. "It's a company." The movie finds a larger socialist lesson in this, when Tom tells Ma: "One guy with a million acres and a hundred thousand farmers starvin'." Of course Tom didn't know the end of the story, about how the Okies would go to work in war industries and their children would prosper more in California than they would have in Oklahoma, and their grandchildren would star in Beach Boys songs. It is easy to forget that for many, "The Grapes of Wrath" had a happy, unwritten, fourth act. Advertisement When Steinbeck published his novel in 1939, it was acclaimed as a masterpiece, won the Pulitzer Prize, was snatched up by Darryl F. Zanuck of 20th Century-Fox and assigned to his top director, John Ford. It expressed the nation's rage about the Depression in poetic, Biblical terms, and its dialogue does a delicate little dance around words like "agitators" and " Reds "--who are, we are intended to understand, what the fat cats call anyone who stands up for the little man. With Hitler rising in Europe, Communism would enjoy a brief respite from the American demonology.

The movie won Oscars for best director and best actress (Jane Darwell as Ma Joad) and was nominated for five others, including best actor ( Henry Fonda ) and best picture (it lost to Hitchcock's "Rebecca"). In a year when there were 10 best film nominees Ford had even another entry, "The Long Voyage Home." "The Grapes of Wrath" was often named the greatest American film, until it was dethroned by the re-release of "Citizen Kane" in 1958, and in the recent American Film Institute poll it finished in the top 10. But do many people watch it anymore? It's not even on DVD. When the DVD restoration does finally arrive, viewers will discover a film that uses realistic black-and-white cinematography to temper its sentiment and provide a documentary quality to scenes like the entry into the Okie transient camp near the California border. Even though the Joad farm is a studio set, Ford liked to shoot on location, and records a journey down Route 66 from the Dust Bowl through New Mexico and Arizona, past shabby gas stations and roadside diners.

The dialogue sometimes grows a little too preachy to fit within the simple vernacular of farmers, and Tom Joad's famous farewell to Ma ("Wherever there's a fight so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever there's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there ...") always sounds to me like writing, not spontaneous expression. Advertisement But it is dialogue spoken by Henry Fonda, whose Tom Joad is one of the great American movie characters, so pure and simple and simplytherein the role that he puts it over. Fonda was an actor with the rare ability to exist on the screen without seeming to reach or try, and he makes it clear even in his silences how he has been pondering Preacher's conversion from religion to union politics. We're not surprised when he tells Ma, "Maybe it's like Casy says. A fella ain't got a soul of his own, just a little piece of a big soul. The one big soul that belongs to everybody." Just as, in the dream of One Big Union, transcendentalism meets Marxism.

The photography is by the great innovator Gregg Toland , who also shot "The Long Voyage Home" and after those two Ford pictures and William Wyler's "The Westerner" moved on directly to his masterpiece, Orson Welles' " Citizen Kane ." In "Voyage" he experimented with the deep-focus photography that would be crucial to "Kane." In "Grapes" he worked with astonishingly low levels of light; consider the many night scenes and the shots in the deserted Joad homestead, where Tom and the preacher seem illuminated by a single candle, Tom silhouetted, Casy side-lit. The power of Ford (1884-1973) was rooted in strong stories, classical technique and direct expression. Years of apprenticeship in low-budget silent films, many of them quickies shot on location, had steeled him against unnecessary set-ups and fancy camera work. There is a rigorous purity in his visual style that serves the subject well. "The Grapes of Wrath" contains not a single shot that seems careless or routine. Advertisement Fonda and Jane Darwell are the actors everyone remembers, although John Carradine's Casy is also instrumental.

Darwell worked in the movies for 50 years, never more memorably than here, where she has the final word ("We'll go on forever, Pa. 'Cause ... we're the people!"). The novel of course ends with a famous scene that stunned its readers, as Rose of Sharon, having lost her baby, offers her milk-filled breast to a starving man in a railroad car. Hollywood, which stretched itself in allowing Clark Gable to say "damn" a year earlier in " Gone With the Wind ," was not ready for that scene, even by implication, in 1940. Since the original audiences would have known it was left out, the film ended with safe sentiment instead of Steinbeck's bold melodramatic masterstroke. I wonder if American audiences will ever again be able to understand the original impact of this material, on the page and on the screen. The centenary of Steinbeck's birth is now being observed with articles sniffing that he was not, after all, all that good, that his Nobel was undeserved, that he was of his time and has dated. But one would not want "The Grapes of Wrath" written differently; irony, stylistic experimentation and "modernism" would weaken it.

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. The banks and land agents of the 1930s have been replaced by financial pyramids so huge and so chummy with the government that Enron, for example, had to tractor itself off its own land.

Advertisement The Grapes of Wrath (Blu-ray) (1940) Starring John Carradine & Henry Fonda; Directed by John Ford; Starring Jane Darwell, Russell Simpson, Charley Grapewin & Doris Bowden; 20th Century Fox | OLDIES.com Academy Awards 1940 - Best Director: John Ford Academy Awards 1940 - Best Supporting Actress: Jane Darwell Entertainment Reviews: "It's gorgeous, jaw-dropping work, rivaling Toland's deep-focus artistry in CITIZEN KANE." USA Today - 04/09/2004 "As son Tom Joad, Henry Fonda gave the screen performance of his career." Uncut - 05/01/2005 "[T]he director's most artistic work..." Uncut - 01/01/2006 Ranked #17 in Uncut's Best DVDs Of 2005 -- "One of Ford's most beautiful films, and Fonda's performance is an essay in layered minimalism..." Chicago Sun-Times - 03/31/2002 "The message is boldly displayed....The movie was

 based on John Steinbecks' novel arguably the most effective social document of the 1930s..." Product Description: John Ford's memorable screen version of John Steinbeck's epic novel of the Great Depression--often regarded as the director's best film--stars Henry Fonda as Tom Joad.

After having served a brief prison sentence for manslaughter, Joad arrives at his family's Oklahoma farm only to find it abandoned. Muley (John Qualen), a neighbor now nearly mad with grief, tells Tom of the drought that has transformed the farmland of Oklahoma into a desert and of the preying land agents who have plowed under the shacks of the sharecroppers. Joined by former hellfire preacher Casy (John Carradine), Tom finds his extended family, including Pa (Charles Grapewin) and his indomitable Ma (Jane Darwell), packing their ramshackle truck to seek work in the fields of California. As the family treks across the country, their dissolution begins with the deaths of Tom's grandparents at close intervals. When they arrive in California, the Joads find only an abundance of poverty-stricken migrants like themselves and little in the way of potential work. Yet, ever resilient, they maintain their dignity, hoping for the best. Among the talented cast, Fonda does perhaps the best work of his career, as does Qualen in the film's most haunting sequence.

Director of photography Gregg Toland captures the suffering and the weathered, luminous nobility of the Joads and the other uprooted, drifting families, creating striking images equal to the best work of Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans. In a stirring film that stands as a microcosm of the depression experience of millions, Ford gives poverty a human face in a way that was rare then and even rarer in the decades to follow as Hollywood films with a sense of class consciousness dwindled like a species nearing extinction. Plot Synopsis: Based on John Steinbeck's Pulitzer Prize-winning 1939 novel, the story follows an Oklahoma family's escape from the dust bowl to join the migration to California's fruit harvest.

Plot Keywords: The Grapes of Wrath DVD (1940) Starring John Carradine & Henry Fonda; Directed by John Ford; Starring Jane Darwell, Russell Simpson, Charley Grapewin & Doris Bowden; 20th Century Fox | OLDIES.com Academy Awards 1940 - Best Director: John Ford Academy Awards 1940 - Best Supporting Actress: Jane Darwell Entertainment Reviews: "It's gorgeous, jaw-dropping work, rivaling Toland's deep-focus artistry in CITIZEN KANE." USA Today - 04/09/2004 "As son Tom Joad, Henry Fonda gave the screen performance of his career." Uncut - 05/01/2005 "[T]he director's most artistic work..." Uncut - 01/01/2006 Ranked #17 in Uncut's Best DVDs Of 2005 -- "One of Ford's most beautiful films, and Fonda's performance is an essay in layered minimalism..." Chicago Sun-Times - 03/31/2002 "The message is boldly displayed....The movie was based on

 John Steinbecks' novel arguably the most effective social document of the 1930s..." Product Description: John Ford's memorable screen version of John Steinbeck's epic novel of the Great Depression--often regarded as the director's best film--stars Henry Fonda as Tom Joad.

After having served a brief prison sentence for manslaughter, Joad arrives at his family's Oklahoma farm only to find it abandoned. Muley (John Qualen), a neighbor now nearly mad with grief, tells Tom of the drought that has transformed the farmland of Oklahoma into a desert and of the preying land agents who have plowed under the shacks of the sharecroppers. Joined by former hellfire preacher Casy (John Carradine), Tom finds his extended family, including Pa (Charles Grapewin) and his indomitable Ma (Jane Darwell), packing their ramshackle truck to seek work in the fields of California. As the family treks across the country, their dissolution begins with the deaths of Tom's grandparents at close intervals. When they arrive in California, the Joads find only an abundance of poverty-stricken migrants like themselves and little in the way of potential work. Yet, ever resilient, they maintain their dignity, hoping for the best. Among the talented cast, Fonda does perhaps the best work of his career, as does Qualen in the film's most haunting sequence.

Director of photography Gregg Toland captures the suffering and the weathered, luminous nobility of the Joads and the other uprooted, drifting families, creating striking images equal to the best work of Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans. In a stirring film that stands as a microcosm of the depression experience of millions, Ford gives poverty a human face in a way that was rare then and even rarer in the decades to follow as Hollywood films with a sense of class consciousness dwindled like a species nearing extinction. Plot Synopsis: Based on John Steinbeck's Pulitzer Prize-winning 1939 novel, the story follows an Oklahoma family's escape from the dust bowl to join the migration to California's fruit harvest. Keywords: Instagloss - The Grapes of Wrath (film) Instagloss The Grapes of Wrath (film) ''The Grapes of Wrath'' is a 1940 drama film directed by John Ford . It was based on John Steinbeck 's Pulitzer Prize -winning novel of the same name . The screenplay was written by Nunnally Johnson and the executive producer was Darryl F. Zanuck .

The film tells the story of the Joads, an Oklahoma family, who, after losing their farm during the Great Depression in the 1930s, become migrant workers and end up in California . Navy Presidential Unit Citation Henry Jaynes Fonda (May 16, 1905 – August 12, 1982) was a celebrated American film and stage actor with a career spanning more than five decades. Fonda was the patriarch of a family of famous actors, including daughter Jane Fonda , son Peter Fonda , granddaughter Bridget Fonda , and grandson Troy Garity . His family and close friends called him "Hank". In 1999, he was named the sixth- Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute . Family history and early life Fonda's ancestors from Genoa , Italy , migrated to the Netherlands in the 15th century. [5] In 1642, a branch of the Fonda family immigrated to the Dutch colony of New Netherland on the East Coast of North America .

[5] [6] They were among the first Dutch population to settle in what is now upstate New York, establishing the town of Fonda , New York . [5] By 1888, many of their descendants had relocated to Nebraska . [5] Henry Fonda was born in Grand Island, Nebraska , to advertising-printing jobber William Brace Fonda, and his wife, Elma Herberta (née Jaynes), in the second year of their marriage. Fonda was brought up as a Christian Scientist , though he was baptized an Episcopalian at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Grand Island. He said, "My whole damn family was nice." They were a close family and highly supportive, especially in health matters, as they avoided doctors due to their religion. Despite having a religious background, he later became an agnostic . Fonda was a bashful, short boy who tended to avoid girls, except his sisters, and was a good skater, swimmer, and runner. He worked part-time in his father's print plant and imagined a possible career as a journalist. Later, he worked after school for the phone company. He also enjoyed drawing.

Fonda was active in the Boy Scouts of America ; Teichmann reports that he reached the rank of Eagle Scout . [2] However, this is denied elsewhere. [2] When he was about 14, his father took him to observe the lynching , of a young black man accused of rape . [2] This enraged the young Fonda and he kept a keen awareness of prejudice for the rest of his life. [2] By his senior year in high school, Fonda had grown to more than six feet tall, but remained shy. He attended the University of Minnesota , where he majored in journalism , [2] but he did not graduate. He took a job with the Retail Credit Company. Career Early stage work At age 20, Fonda started his acting career at the Omaha Community Playhouse , when his mother's friend Dodie Brando (mother of Marlon Brando ) recommended that he try out for a juvenile part in You and I, in which he was cast as Ricky. He was fascinated by the stage, learning everything from set construction to stage production, and embarrassed by his acting ability.

[2] When he received the lead in Merton of the Movies, he realized the beauty of acting as a profession, as it allowed him to deflect attention from his own tongue-tied personality and create stage characters relying on someone else's scripted words. Fonda decided to quit his job and go East in 1928 to seek his fortune. He arrived on Cape Cod and played a minor role at the Cape Playhouse in Dennis, Massachusetts . A friend took him to Falmouth, MA where he joined and quickly became a valued member of the University Players , an intercollegiate summer stock company. There he worked with Margaret Sullavan , his future wife. [2] James Stewart joined the Players a few months after Fonda left, though they were soon to become lifelong friends. Fonda left the Players at the end of their 1931-1932 season after appearing in his first professional role in The Jest, by Sem Benelli .

Joshua Logan , a young sophomore at Princeton who had been double-cast in the show, gave Fonda the part of Tornaquinci, "an elderly Italian man with a long white beard and even longer hair." Also in the cast of The Jest with Fonda and Logan were Bretaigne Windust , Kent Smith , and Eleanor Phelps . [2] The tall (6 ft, 1.5 in) and slim (160 lb) Fonda headed for New York City , to be with his now wife, Margaret Sullavan. The marriage was brief, but when James Stewart came to New York his luck changed. Getting contact information from Joshua Logan, Jimmy, as he was called, found Hank Fonda and these small town boys found they had a lot in common, as long as they didn't discuss politics. The two men became roommates and honed their skills on Broadway . Fonda appeared in theatrical productions from 1926 to 1934. They fared no better than many Americans in and out of work during the Great Depression , sometimes lacking enough money to take the subway.

[2] Entering Hollywood Fonda got his first break in films when he was hired in 1935 as Janet Gaynor's leading man in 20th Century Fox's screen adaptation of The Farmer Takes a Wife ; he reprised his role from the Broadway production of the same name, which had gained him critical recognition. Suddenly, Fonda was making $3,000 a week and dining with Hollywood stars such as Carole Lombard . [2] Stewart soon followed him to Hollywood, and they roomed together again, in lodgings next door to Greta Garbo . In 1935, Fonda starred in the RKO film I Dream Too Much with the opera star Lily Pons . The New York Times announced him as "Henry Fonda, the most likable of the new crop of romantic juveniles." Fonda's film career blossomed as he costarred with Sylvia Sidney and Fred MacMurray in The Trail of the Lonesome Pine (1936), the first Technicolor movie filmed outdoors. He starred with ex-wife Margaret Sullavan in The Moon's Our Home , and a short rekindling of their relationship led to a brief but temporary consideration of remarriage.

Fonda got the nod for the lead role in You Only Live Once (1937), also costarring Sidney, and directed by Fritz Lang . He was a critical success opposite Bette Davis , who had picked him, in the film Jezebel (1938). This was followed by the title role in Young Mr. Lincoln (1939), his first collaboration with director John Ford , and that year he played Frank James in Jesse James (1939). Another 1939 film was Drums Along the Mohawk , also directed by Ford. Fonda's successes led Ford to recruit him to play Tom Joad in the film version of John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath (1940). A reluctant Darryl Zanuck , who preferred Tyrone Power , insisted on Fonda's signing a seven-year contract with his studio, Twentieth Century-Fox . [10] Fonda agreed, and was ultimately nominated for an Academy Award for his work in the 1940 film, which many consider to be his finest role. Fonda starred in The Return of Frank James (1940) with Gene Tierney .

He then played opposite Barbara Stanwyck in Preston Sturges ' The Lady Eve (1941), and again teamed with Tierney in the successful screwball comedy Rings on Her Fingers (1942). She was one of Fonda's favorite co-stars, and they appeared in three films together. He was acclaimed for his role in The Ox-Bow Incident (1943). Fonda enlisted in the United States Navy to fight in World War II , saying, "I don't want to be in a fake war in a studio." [11] Previously, Stewart and he had helped raise funds for the defense of Britain . [12] Fonda served for three years, initially as a Quartermaster 3rd Class on the destroyer USS Satterlee . He was later commissioned as a Lieutenant Junior Grade in Air Combat Intelligence in the Central Pacific and was awarded the Navy Presidential Unit Citation and the Bronze Star . [13] Postwar career After the war, Fonda took a break from movies and attended Hollywood parties and enjoyed civilian life.

Stewart and Fonda would listen to records and invite Johnny Mercer , Hoagy Carmichael , Dinah Shore , and Nat King Cole over for music, with the latter giving the family piano lessons. Fonda played Wyatt Earp in My Darling Clementine (1946), which was directed by John Ford. Fonda did seven postwar films until his contract with Fox expired, the last being Otto Preminger's Daisy Kenyon (1947), opposite Joan Crawford . He starred in The Fugitive (1947), which was the first film of Ford's new production company, Argosy Pictures . In 1948, he appeared in a subsequent Argosy/Ford production, Fort Apache , as a rigid Army colonel, along with John Wayne and Shirley Temple in her first adult role. Refusing another long-term studio contract, Fonda returned to Broadway, wearing his own officer's cap to originate the title role in Mister Roberts , a comedy about the Navy, where Fonda, a junior officer, wages a private war against the captain. He won a 1948 Tony Award for the part.

Fonda followed that by reprising his performance in the national tour and with successful stage runs in Point of No Return and The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial. After an eight-year absence from films, he starred in the 1955 film version of Mister Roberts with James Cagney , William Powell , and Jack Lemmon , continuing a pattern of bringing his acclaimed stage roles to life on the big screen. On the set of Mister Roberts, Fonda came to blows with John Ford, who punched him during filming, and Fonda vowed never to work for the director again. While he kept that vow for years, Fonda spoke glowingly of Ford in Peter Bogdanovich's documentary Directed by John Ford and in a documentary on Ford's career alongside Ford and James Stewart. Fonda refused to participate until he learned that Ford had insisted on casting Fonda as the lead in the film version of Mr. Roberts, reviving Fonda's film career after concentrating on the stage for years. After Mr. Roberts, Fonda next acted in Paramount Pictures's production of the Leo Tolstoy epic War and Peace (1956), in which he played Pierre Bezukhov opposite Audrey Hepburn ; it took two years to shoot.

Fonda worked with Alfred Hitchcock in 1956, playing a man falsely accused of robbery in The Wrong Man ; the unusual semidocumentary work of Hitchcock's was based on an actual incident and partly filmed on location. In 1957, Fonda made his first foray into production with 12 Angry Men , based on a teleplay and a script by Reginald Rose and directed by Sidney Lumet . The low-budget movie was completed in 17 days of filming, mostly in one claustrophobic jury room. It had a strong cast, including Jack Klugman , Lee J. Cobb , Martin Balsam , and E. G. Marshall . The intense film about 12 jurors deciding the fate of a young Puerto Rican man accused of murder was well received by critics worldwide. Fonda shared the Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations with co-producer Reginald Rose and won the 1958 BAFTA Award for Best Actor for his performance as "Juror #8", who with logic and persistence eventually sways all the jurors to an acquittal. Early on, the film drew poorly, but after winning critical acclaim and awards, it proved a success.

In spite of the good outcome, Fonda vowed that he would never produce a movie again, fearing that failing as a producer might derail his acting career. After acting in the western movies The Tin Star (1957) and Warlock (1959), Fonda returned to the production seat for the NBC western television series The Deputy (1959–1961), in which he starred as Marshal Simon Fry. His co-stars were Allen Case and Read Morgan . During the 1960s, Fonda performed in a number of war and western epics, including 1962's The Longest Day and the Cinerama production How the West Was Won , 1965's In Harm's Way , and Battle of the Bulge . In the Cold War suspense film Fail-Safe (1964), Fonda played the President of the United States who tries to avert a nuclear holocaust through tense negotiations with the Soviets after American bombers are mistakenly ordered to attack the USSR. He also returned to more light-hearted cinema in Spencer's Mountain (1963), which was the inspiration for the TV series, The Waltons .

Fonda appeared against type as the villain 'Frank' in 1968's Once Upon a Time in the West . After initially turning down the role, he was convinced to accept it by actor Eli Wallach and director Sergio Leone , who flew from Italy to the United States to persuade him to take the part. Fonda had planned on wearing a pair of brown-colored contact lenses , but Leone preferred the paradox of contrasting close-up shots of Fonda's innocent-looking blue eyes with the vicious personality of the character Fonda played. Fonda's relationship with Jimmy Stewart survived their disagreements over politics — Fonda was a liberal Democrat , and Stewart a conservative Republican . After a heated argument, they avoided talking politics with each other. The two men teamed up for 1968's Firecreek , where Fonda again played the heavy. In 1970, Fonda and Stewart co-starred in the western The Cheyenne Social Club , a minor film in which they humorously argued politics.

They had first appeared together on film in On Our Merry Way (1948), a comedy which also starred William Demarest and Fred MacMurray and featured a grown-up Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer , who had acted as a child in Our Gang. [14] Late career Despite approaching his seventies, Fonda continued to work in theater, television and film through the 1970s. In 1970, Fonda appeared in three films; the most successful was The Cheyenne Social Club . The other two films were Too Late the Hero , in which Fonda played a secondary role, and There Was a Crooked Man , about Paris Pitman Jr. (played by Kirk Douglas ) trying to escape from an Arizona prison. Fonda returned to both foreign and television productions, which provided career sustenance through a decade in which many aging screen actors suffered waning careers. He starred in the ABC television series The Smith Family between 1971 and 1972. A TV-movie adaptation of John Steinbeck's novel, 1973's The Red Pony, earned Fonda an Emmy nomination.

After the unsuccessful Hollywood melodrama, Ash Wednesday, he filmed three Italian productions released in 1973 and 1974. The most successful of these, My Name is Nobody , presented Fonda in a rare comedic performance as an old gunslinger whose plans to retire are dampened by a "fan" of sorts. Fonda continued stage acting throughout his last years, including several demanding roles in Broadway plays. He returned to Broadway in 1974 for the biographical drama, Clarence Darrow , for which he was nominated for a Tony Award. Fonda's health had been deteriorating for years, but his first outward symptoms occurred after a performance of the play in April 1974, when he collapsed from exhaustion. After the appearance of a cardiac arrhythmia brought on by prostate cancer , he had a pacemaker installed following cancer surgery. Fonda returned to the play in 1975. After the run of a 1978 play, First Monday of October, he took the advice of his doctors and quit plays, though he continued to star in films and television.

Fonda appeared in a revival of The Time of Your Life that opened in March 17, 1972, at the Huntington Hartford Theater in Los Angeles, where Fonda, Richard Dreyfuss , Gloria Grahame , Ron Thompson , [15] Strother Martin , Jane Alexander , Lewis J. Stadlen , Richard X. Slattery , and Pepper Martin were among the cast with Edwin Sherin directing. [16] [3] In 1976, Fonda appeared in several notable television productions, the first being Collision Course, the story of the volatile relationship between President Harry Truman ( E. G. Marshall ) and General MacArthur (Fonda), produced by ABC. After an appearance in the acclaimed Showtime broadcast of Almos' a Man, based on a story by Richard Wright , he starred in the epic NBC miniseries Captains and Kings, based on Taylor Caldwell 's novel. Three years later, he appeared in ABC's Roots: The Next Generations , but the miniseries was overshadowed by its predecessor, Roots . Also in 1976, Fonda starred in the World War II blockbuster Midway .

Fonda finished the 1970s in a number of disaster films . The first of these was the 1977 Italian killer octopus thriller Tentacoli ( Tentacles ) and Rollercoaster , in which Fonda appeared with Richard Widmark and a young Helen Hunt . He performed again with Widmark, Olivia de Havilland , Fred MacMurray, and José Ferrer in the killer bee action film The Swarm . He also acted in the global disaster film Meteor (his second role as a sitting President of the United States after Fail-Safe), with Sean Connery , Natalie Wood , and Karl Malden , and the Canadian production City on Fire , which also featured Shelley Winters and Ava Gardner . Fonda had a small role with his son, Peter, in Wanda Nevada (1979), with Brooke Shields . As Fonda's health declined and he took longer breaks between filming, critics began to take notice of his extensive body of work. In 1979, he was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame for his achievements on Broadway. [3] Lifetime Achievement awards from the Golden Globes and Academy Awards followed in 1980 and 1981, respectively.

Fonda continued to act into the early 1980s, though all but one of the productions in which he was featured before his death were for television. The television works included the critically acclaimed live performance of Preston Jones ' The Oldest Living Graduate and the Emmy-nominated Gideon's Trumpet (co-starring Fay Wray in her last performance) about Clarence Gideon's fight to have the right to publicly funded legal counsel for the indigent. On Golden Pond in 1981, the film adaptation of Ernest Thompson's play, marked one final professional and personal triumph for Fonda. Directed by Mark Rydell , the project provided unprecedented collaborations between Fonda and Katharine Hepburn, along with Fonda and his daughter, Jane . The elder Fonda played an emotionally brittle and distant father who becomes more accessible at the end of his life. Jane Fonda has said that elements of the story mimicked their real-life relationship, and helped them resolve certain issues.

She bought the film rights in the hope that her father would play the role, and later described it as "a gift to my father that was so unbelievably successful." [3] Premiered in December 1981, the film was well received by critics, and after a limited release on December 4, On Golden Pond developed enough of an audience to be widely released on January 22. With 10 Academy Award nominations, the film earned nearly $120 million at the box office, becoming an unexpected blockbuster. In addition to wins for Hepburn (Best Actress), and Thompson (Screenplay), On Golden Pond brought Fonda his only Oscar - for Best Actor (he was the oldest recipient of the award; it also earned him a Golden Globe Best Actor award). Fonda was by that point too ill to attend the ceremony, and his daughter Jane accepted on his behalf. She said when accepting the award that her dad would probably quip, "Well, ain't I lucky." After Fonda's death, some film critics called this performance "his last and greatest role". Fonda's final performance was in the 1981 television drama Summer Solstice [3] with Myrna Loy.

It was filmed after On Golden Pond had wrapped and Fonda was in rapidly declining health. Personal life Marriages and children Fonda was married five times and had three children, one of them adopted. His marriage to Margaret Sullavan in 1931 soon ended in separation, which was finalized in a 1933 divorce. In 1936, he married Frances Ford Seymour Brokaw , widow of a wealthy industrialist, George Tuttle Brokaw. [3] The Brokaws had a daughter, Frances de Villers, nicknamed "Pan", who had been born soon after the Brokaws marriage in 1931. [3] Fonda met his future wife Frances at Denham Studios in England on the set of Wings of the Morning , [3] the first British picture to be filmed in Technicolor. They had two children, Jane (born December 21, 1937) and Peter (born February 23, 1940), both of whom became successful actors. They have each had Oscar nominations.

In August 1949, Fonda announced to Frances that he wanted a divorce so he could remarry; their 13 years of marriage had not been happy ones for him. [3] Devastated by Fonda's confession, and plagued by emotional problems for many years, Frances went into the Austen Riggs Psychiatric Hospital in January 1950 for treatment. She committed suicide there on April 14. Before her death, she had written six notes to various individuals, but left no final message for her husband. Fonda quickly arranged a private funeral with only himself and his mother-in-law, Sophie Seymour, in attendance. [3] Years later, Dr. Margaret Gibson, the psychiatrist who had treated Frances at Austen Riggs, described Henry Fonda: "He was a cold, self-absorbed person, a complete narcissist ." [3] Later in 1950, Fonda married Susan Blanchard , with whom he had been having an affair since sometime in 1948. She was 21 years old, the daughter of Australian-born interior designer Dorothy Hammerstein , and the step-daughter of Oscar Hammerstein II .

Together, they adopted a daughter, Amy Fishman (born 1953). [21] They divorced three years later. Blanchard was in awe of Fonda, and she described her role in the marriage as "a geisha", doing everything she could to please him, dealing with and solving problems he would not acknowledge. In 1957, Fonda married the Italian baroness Afdera Franchetti [22] They divorced in 1961. Soon after, in 1965, Fonda married Shirlee Mae Adams, and remained with her until his death in 1982. Fonda's relationship with his children has been described as "emotionally distant". Fonda loathed displays of feeling in himself or others, and this was a consistent part of his character. Whenever he felt that his emotional wall was being breached, he had outbursts of anger, exhibiting a furious temper that terrified his family. In Peter Fonda's 1998 autobiography Don't Tell Dad (1998), he described how he was never sure how his father felt about him.

He never volunteered to his father that he loved him until he was elderly, and Peter finally heard, "I love you, son." [23] His daughter Jane rejected her father's friendships with Republican actors such as John Wayne and James Stewart. Their relationship became extremely strained as Jane Fonda became a left-wing activist. Jane Fonda reported feeling detached from her father, especially during her early acting days. In 1958, she met Lee Strasberg while visiting her father at Malibu. The Fonda and Strasberg families were neighbors, and she had developed a friendship with Strasberg's daughter, Susan . Jane Fonda began studying acting with Strasberg, learning the techniques of " The Method " of which Strasberg was a renowned proponent. This proved to be a pivotal point in her career. As Jane Fonda developed her skill as an actress, she became frustrated with her father's talent that, to her, appeared a demonstration of effortless ability. Politics Fonda was an ardent supporter of the Democratic Party and "an admirer" of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt . [24] In 1960 , Fonda appeared in a campaign commercial for presidential candidate John F.

Kennedy . The ad focused on Kennedy's naval service during World War II, specifically the famous PT-109 incident. [24] On acting In the late 1950s, when Jane Fonda asked her father how he prepared before going on stage, she was baffled by his answer, "I don't know, I stand there, I think about my wife, Afdera, I don't know." The writer Al Aronowitz, while working on a profile of Jane Fonda for The Saturday Evening Post in the 1960s, asked Henry Fonda about method acting: "I can't articulate about the Method", he told me, "because I never studied it. I don't mean to suggest that I have any feelings one way or the other about it...I don't know what the Method is and I don't care what the Method is. Everybody's got a method. Everybody can't articulate about their method, and I can't, if I have a method—and Jane sometimes says that I use the Method, that is, the capital letter Method, without being aware of it.

Maybe I do; it doesn't matter." Aronowitz reported Jane saying, "My father can't articulate the way he works. He just can't do it. He's not even conscious of what he does, and it made him nervous for me to try to articulate what I was trying to do. And I sensed that immediately, so we did very little talking about it...he said, 'Shut up, I don't want to hear about it.' He didn't want me to tell him about it, you know. He wanted to make fun of it." Death and legacy Fonda died at his Los Angeles home on August 12, 1982, from heart disease . Fonda's wife, Shirlee, his daughter Jane, and his son Peter were at his side when he died. [25] He suffered from prostate cancer , but this did not directly cause his death and was noted only as a concurrent ailment on his death certificate. Fonda requested that no funeral be held, and he was promptly cremated. President Ronald Reagan , a former actor himself, hailed Fonda as "a true professional dedicated to excellence in his craft.

He graced the screen with a sincerity and accuracy which made him a legend." Fonda is widely recognized as one of the Hollywood greats of the classic era. On the centenary of his birth, May 16, 2005, Turner Classic Movies (TCM) honored him with a marathon of his films. Also in May 2005, the United States Post Office released a 37-cent postage stamp with an artist's drawing of Fonda as part of their "Hollywood legends" series. [11] The Fonda Theatre in Hollywood, originally known as the Carter DeHaven Music Box, was named for the actor in 1985 by the Nederlander Organization . Filmography From the beginning of his career in 1935 through his last projects in 1981, Fonda appeared in 106 films, television programs, and shorts. Through the course of his career, he appeared in many critically acclaimed films, including such classics as 12 Angry Men and The Ox-Bow Incident.

He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in 1940's The Grapes of Wrath and won for his part in 1981's On Golden Pond. Fonda made his mark in Westerns (which included his most villainous role as Frank in Once Upon a Time in the West) and war films, and made frequent appearances in both television and foreign productions late in his career. Broadway stage performances

Question: The Joad family appear in which novel and 1940 film directed by John Ford?
Answer: The Grapes of Wrath