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The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck is one of those books that if you’re not assigned to read it in school, you probably never will on your own time. For me, books like it or Catcher in the Rye or Fahrenheit 451 will just always live in that territory, just as I’m sure The Great Gatsby or To Kill a Mockingbird do for others. Fortunately, a number of these books have been made into movies, and some quite swiftly. Less than a year after its’ publication, a movie version of The Grapes of Wrath was released by 20th Century Fox in 1940. And I wonder if this wasn’t just to capitalize on the success and popularity of that Pullitzer Prize winning novel, but also to ensure a movie came out at a time when the plot was still extremely relevant and resonant. The United States was only then just coming out of the Great Depression after all, and there were still families all over living life stories comparable to the Joads. Timeliness in those days counted for a lot in Hollywood.
The film was directed by John Ford, who by then only had one Oscar to his name (for 1935’s The Informer) -this would be his second. 1939 had been kind of a breakout year for Ford, with both Stagecoach -the western that would make his name ubiquitous with the genre, and Young Mr. Lincoln -a well-received biopic in which he first worked with rising talent Henry Fonda. So naturally he was tasked with this considerable project by producer Darryl F. Zanuck, who had been quick to secure the rights, and for the lead role he brought Fonda along with him. It was a job that if he did just well enough would easily be a huge success with critics, audiences, and the Oscars -it was a popular book after all, which naturally generated anticipation.
But the text of the book matched with this particular director is very curious, and I was surprised to find that for such a work of a rather dry reputation brought to the screen by an avowed conservative, The Grapes of Wrath is something of a socialist parable -a story all about the struggles of the working class that ends with its’ hero essentially making the case for unions and vowing to fight on behalf of oppressed labour. It’s extremely bold and humanist, and shockingly blunt in this messaging. Roger Ebert theorizes it was allowed to get away with this because of the Second World War -with fascism the biggest boogeyman of the day, it was safe to openly be modestly left-wing in your messaging. Even Ford managed to go along with it, articulating the themes superbly. This is a film that has nothing but respect for the white working-class and doesn’t even demonize its’ ex-con protagonist.
That is how Tom Joad is introduced, out on parole from a sentence he served for killing a man in self-defence. I imagine part of Fonda’s casting was to soften this blow, make it more palatable for moralistic audiences to sympathize with a character introduced in this way. But it need not be necessary given Tom’s expressed virtues over the course of the movie. He’s often seen to be one of the revered heroes of American literature alongside figures like Atticus Finch and Jay Gatsby, and I can understand why: an upstanding but humble man of the people with a deep affection for his family and a principled sense of social justice. And Fonda was the right person to play him, as someone who could believably encapsulate all of these values with a sincerity that doesn’t always show in such classic Hollywood roles. Clark Gable, Cary Grant, Gary Cooper, James Cagney, even Spencer Tracy wouldn’t have been halfway convincing in this part -but Fonda’s passionate earnestness holds out, it transcends the movie. When he says “wherever there’s a fight for hungry people to eat, I’ll be there; wherever there’s a cop beatin’ up a guy, I’ll be there”, you really believe him! It is the highlight of both this movie and Fonda’s career -as it is what would cement his screen persona. And it really is that exceptional.
The plot of course follows on Tom’s coming home to his family’s Oklahoma farm to discover it abandoned, later catching up with them on their arduous migration to California; and then once there shuffling around migrant camps in search of jobs for feeble pay and untenable conditions. Such was the reality of the Depression for all too many, Steinbeck having drawn on real stories of “Okies” forced to abandon their livelihoods for the faint hope of better prospects out west. And the movie illustrates those hardships quite effectively, even as it does have to clean up some of the most dismal material from the book. Particularly impressive is how the movie’s imagery is coated in a grim darkness. Even for a black and white movie, everything seems very grey, very muted. The set designs emphasize dilapidation and dirtiness, the cinematography by Citizen Kane’s Greg Toland is harsh, dwarfing dwellings around characters and in their close-ups honing in on sweat beads or grizzled faces. And yet the contrast in all this, especially in night sequences that use a lot of shadowing, is smooth –such as when Tom and itinerant preacher Jim Casy (an excellent John Carradine) discover a former landowner Muley Graves (John Qualen) hiding out in the old Joad home, and as they listen to his subsequent story of woe. California, which in other movies of the time was emphasized as a golden land of riches, here is an empire of blackly coloured slums, dirt, and grease –painted by the Joads experience of it, but authentically nonetheless.
The characters feel authentic too, in spite of two very precocious Hollywood children. Tom’s sister Rose of Sharon (Dorris Bowdon) doesn’t get much screen-time, but enough to feel her sorrow at her husband leaving at the first campground. Pa Joad (Russell Simpson) is a similarly sad figure, dispirited and obsolete, though not near as depressed as his parents, horrified at having to leave the land they were on for generations; and each of whom dies shortly into the journey (one of the films’ potent scenes is when the family is burying grandpa, Tom has to write an explanation on scrap paper from the family Bible to stick on the body, so as to deter authorities from thinking it was murder, should they find the unmarked grave in the woods). The one who holds them together as much as is possible is Ma, played by a lovely Jane Darwell, a sweet, strong-willed, and emphatically human matriarch. There’s a real familial richness to her scenes with Tom, a down-to-earth honesty to both her appearance and role in the family unit that is so charming to behold. And of course she gets a great optimistic speech at the end exalting the endurance of the lower class, in which she becomes the avatar of “the people”, that is likely pulled verbatim from the book -and just as likely the primary reason behind her Best Supporting Actress Oscar win.
There’s a fair bit of that kind of allegory here, which I’m sure has been discussed at length in many high school English papers. Maybe the most obvious point is the structure of the story, which feels like an almost Dantean cycle, each new episode coming on the heels of the old with a new challenge for the Joads as they journey the difficult Dust Bowl trail, in their destitution relying on kindnesses of strangers, before arriving at their destination and still having to go through trials there to eke out some kind of a livable existence. Their first camp is sordid and violent and downright Dickensian, the second corrupt, its’ populace exploited by a food monopoly -only the third, in which they’re supported by their government, seems to satisfy their basic needs fairly. It’s so classical in style, and yet it is modern and irrevocably, distinctly American. Biblical symbolism is all over the place too. Casy, who accompanies the Joads part of the way and later finds them again before dying for the burgeoning workers’ cause, is a moral and spiritual leader -even a Christ figure (one who lives by scriptural example even), whose precepts are passed on to Tom in the end, transforming his life’s mission. And those themes, illustrated so bluntly and with such viciousness towards the powerful, bestow epic proportions on a story so humble in its’ sights.
The Grapes of Wrath is a universal story, I understand why it’s so revered, because it can apply to so many people and so many movements across time. Its’ specifics may be rooted in American post-colonialism and rural lifestyles, but the struggle and the messaging, which is what’s important, has much farther reach. It’s astonishing this movie manages to retain so much of that -I could hardly imagine a movie coming out even now with such open socialist leanings (Sorry to Bother You was a rare beast) let alone in 1940 just a decade away from the Red Scare. “Reds” are mentioned in the movie as simply a catch-all term used against anyone speaking out -Tom has no idea what it even denotes. But rarely does the text seem disingenuous in its’ philosophy or that it is mere propaganda (even though it’s fairly effective as such), because it is so deeply honest and soulful.
As a movie, it’s also quite exceptional, real and tangible in a way that a lot of its’ contemporaries couldn’t or wouldn’t match. The plight it depicted was true, and still keenly felt, fresh in the memory. That’s hard to believe when the conditions portrayed by the film are so bad you’d think it was a period piece and not merely a largely contemporary profile -though the Joads are in California they couldn’t be further from the world occupied by John Ford and Henry Fonda.
Ford’s direction is excellent. Ebert describes the “rigorous purity that serves the subject well.” “The Grapes of Wrath” he says, “contains not a single shot that seems careless or routine.” It’s one of those movies that probably should be seen at least once, especially if you haven’t read the book. It is important in a real effecting way and just generally is a damn good piece of cinema. The kind of movie with the power to build empathy and change minds for the better -those should always be treasured.
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