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John Ford, 1940
There's a saying, “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” Thus it was that public radio's The Boomtown Chronicles reported in their debut show about the plight of California's migrant farmworkers. An issue that we associate with the dustbowl era of the 1930s is still with us now, more than thirty years after Cesar Chavez led his landmark protests. But then again, polio is making a comeback too.
There is a reason we return to John Steinbeck's 1939 epic novel. It is one type of quintessentially American story, this tale of the “red country” and “gray country” of Oklahoma, and the tale of the migrants making their way along Highway 66 - which was the secret code title 20th Century Fox used to keep the project under wraps to avoid problems from the Associated Farmers of California, until Darryl Zanuck was ready to tell the world what his studio was up to.
Reading the book in 8th grade was a revelation for me, and I remember finishing it on a November night in 1965, when the entire eastern seaboard of the United States was experiencing what was, at that time, the largest electrical blackout in American history. Our battery-operated transistor radios were filled with talk of a Communist invasion, and many of us thought our world was coming to an end. I had to finish Grapes of Wrath for a midterm exam the next day (assuming our schools wouldn't be overrun with Commies that quickly), and did so by candlelight, a somehow fitting atmosphere by which to experience the Joad family's escape from the flood into the boxcar (a different ending than seen in the movie, due to prevailing censorship at the time). The ending of the book is devastating, one of the great literary endings of all time (and restored in Frank Galati's stage adaptation for the Steppenwolf Theatre Company). I was moved to tears and forever affected by the story of these people who were looked down on by outsiders, but when introduced to each other, always said “I'm proud to meet ya.”
The novel was adapted for John Ford's capable directing by Nunnally Johnson, a screenwriter whose career spanned some 66 films, from the story for 1927's Rough House Rosie to 1967's classic The Dirty Dozen. Along the way, besides Grapes of Wrath, his standouts include Bulldog Drummond Strikes Back, Tobacco Road, Roxie Hart (the second of two earlier versions of what we know as the musical Chicago), The Moon is Down, The Keys of the Kingdom, The Desert Fox, How to Marry a Millionaire, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, The Three Faces of Eve, Something's Got to Give, Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation, Take Her She's Mine, The World of Henry Orient, and Dear Brigitte (a personal favorite of mine, which takes place in Sausalito - one I wish we could have shown in our tribute to films shot in the Bay Area, but it's currently unavailable for screening). Those of us who even think about becoming screenwriters idolize several of them - William Goldman, Robert Towne, John Michael Hayes, Preston Sturges, . . . and Nunnally Johnson.
So many things conspired to make this film great, but John Ford's direction defines why this man was one of the greatest American directors of all time. Look at every shot, and you'll see a black and white version of a Rembrandt painting. But it is truly the collaboration between a brilliant director, Ford, and Hollywood's most brilliant and innovative cinematographer, Gregg Toland, that makes the look of Grapes of Wrath possible. (They also worked together that same year, 1940, on The Long Voyage Home - both films were nominated for the Best Picture Oscar that year - and would work again together on a documentary project for the Army about Pearl Harbor.)
Before another year was out, Toland would be working with first-time film director Orson Welles to stretch film vocabulary in Citizen Kane. Welles would be so impressed, and consider Toland's contribution to Kane so critical, that he would share his credit screen with Toland. But looking at Grapes of Wrath, it's obvious why Welles chose him for Kane, and what his contribution to the look and feel of Welles' film was. Although Kane was certainly innovative, much of what it's credited for Toland and/or Ford had accomplished earlier - in The Grapes of Wrath, Stagecoach, and other films. The use of light and shadow to create mood, low angles, putting the camera at or below floor level (and showing ceilings), some of the sound innovations we think we are hearing for the first time in Kane - see if you don't spot them first in Grapes of Wrath. It's a truly remarkable feature.
Jane Darwell's performance (already her one hundred and fifteenth film in a career of one hundred and seventy four performances! - from 1913's The Capture of Aguinaldo to 1964's Mary Poppins) was one of her best - but who has seen all of them to judge? John Carradine, as the preacher, Casy, creates a character that will stick in your memory long after the film's closing credits have faded. Carradine was a favorite of director John Ford; they had worked together on Drums Along the Mohawk and Stagecoach. He had also worked with Tyrone Power in the Nunnally Johnson-scripted Jesse James. Later in his career, of course, Carradine would become king of the creepy roles (Blood of the Ghastly Horror, Terror in the Wax Museum, etc.), and then later parody those creepy roles in such films as Woody Allen's Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex But Were Afraid to Ask.
Henry Fonda, nominated for an Oscar as Tom Joad, is forever linked in people's minds in this role. Although Zanuck originally wanted either Don Ameche or Tyrone Power for the role, when they fell through, Fonda (who had worked at Fox, and with John Ford and John Carradine the previous year in Drums Along the Mohawk), reluctantly agreed to sign a seven year contract with Fox, a move he was trying to avoid in order to stay independent of any single studio. He didn't need to worry. At this early point in his career, the role gave him star power and his career took off. Within the next few years, he would work with legendary director Fritz Lang in The Return of Frank James, be lent to Paramount and Preston Sturges for The Lady Eve, be reunited with John Ford for Fox's My Darling Clementine, take a trip across the Hollywood Hills to work at Warner Brothers in the Thurber/Nugent comedy The Male Animal, and back at his home base at Fox, he would shine in the classic western The Oxbow Incident. All these films and more would earn him honors and all would be made within a six year period of Grapes of Wrath.
Despite the changes necessary in turning his book into a Hollywood film, John Steinbeck was pleased with what Zanuck, John Ford, and Nunnally Johnson did with his work. He was quoted as saying that Fonda's performance made him “believe in his own words,” a compliment Fonda prized highly.
With all these great reasons - direction, script, cinematography, performances - to return to such a classic film (and a book well worth reading and re-reading), the one reason you wish you didn't need to revisit The Grapes of Wrath in 2005 is that its subject matter is still so relevant today. As one man they meet on the road tells Tom and Pa Joad, “Well, if you truly wanta know, I'm a fella that's asked questions an' give her some thought. She's a nice country. But she was stole a long time ago.”
By Kenn Rabin
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