US 129m Dir: John Ford Key Cast: Henry Fonda
Based on the John Steinbeck book of the same name, The Grapes of Wrath tells the story of the Joad family. During the Great Depression of the 1930s the family lose their farm in Oklahoma and become migrant workers, travelling to California in the hope of finding work and a new life.
The film is pretty stark although actually it is less stark than the book, removing some of the most bleak elements and switching around events so that the film has a relatively uplifting ending. The book focuses more generally on the wider "family of man" whereas the film omits various characters and focuses more closely on the family unit. I think on the whole these changes work and the more narrowly focuses approach is often a sensible choice when converting a book into a film. It still captures the tone of the film and depicts the basic plot effectively.
Producer Darryl F. Zanuck was worried about the fact the book has strong left-wing political views and was worried that the film would be considered pro-Communist, as most things even slightly left-wing were considered at the time. Interestingly many reviewers online talk about this being Communist but I don't think it goes anywhere near that far and actually only knocks on the door of socialism.
It's nice to watch a film of it's era which doesn't focus on the wealthy people who are more worried about who they are going to marry than how they are going to earn enough money to afford food. The family unit feels very close and the sense of the family looking after each other through terrible adversity feels very real.
Bleak and often too real but there's a warmth that comes from the family unit that softens it a little and it manages to capture the tone and themes of the book effectively whilst still making some appropriate changes.
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