| | |
Features: DVD, Black & White, Pan and Scan (TV Format), Dolby Digital Stereo, Audio Commentary, Featurettes, Spanish, English Subtitled
The years have not lessened the impact of Oscar-winning director John Ford's 1940 screen version of John Steinbeck's powerful novel. From its early scenes of Dust Bowl desolation to Ma Joad's triumphant closing words, this saga of the Joad family and its struggle to reestablish roots in California during the Depression remains a movie masterpiece. In a performance that would resonate throughout the rest of his career, Henry Fonda plays Tom Joad, a common man who confronts the forces of nature and hate with uncommon valor. In an American Film Institute list of the all-time best American films, The Grapes Of Wrath was among the Top 10.
" The Grapes Of Wrath is just about as good as any picture has a right to be; if it was any better, we just wouldn't believe our eyes." Frank S. Nugent, The New York Times
"Don't miss this one." Leonard Maltin
Editor's Note
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 Summary
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.
| Features | Audio: English Stereo, Mono; Spanish Mono | | Still Gallery | | Scene Selection | | Interactive Menus | | Restoration Comparison | | Theatrical Trailer | | Movie Tone News | | Featurette | | Audio Commentary | | Biography: Daryl Zannuck |
| Technical Info
|
Release Information
| | Studio: Foxvideo |
| Release Date: 6/19/2008 |
| Running Time: 129 minutes |
| Original Release Date: 1940 | | Catalog ID: 2220330 | | UPC: 00024543103301 | | Number of Discs: 1 |
Audio & Video
| | Original Language: English | | Available Audio Tracks: English [CC], English, Spanish Dubbed | | Available Subtitles: English, Spanish | | Video: B&W |
Aspect Ratio | | 4:3 |
| Cast & Crew | Henry Fonda | | Jane Darwell | | John Carradine | | Alfred Newman - Musical Score | | Darryl F. Zanuck - Producer | | Gregg Toland - Director of Photography | | Gwen Wakeling - Costume Designer | | John Ford - Director | | John Steinbeck - Based on Novel By | | Mark-Lee Kirk - Production Designer | | Nunnally Johnson - Screenplay | | Nunnally Johnson - Producer | | Richard Day - Production Designer | | Robert L. Simpson - Editor |
| Awards |
Oscar (1941) |  | John Ford, Winner, Best Director | | Jane Darwell, Winner, Best Supporting Actress | | | Henry Fonda, Nominee, Best Actor | | | Robert L. Simpson, Nominee, Best Film Editing | | | Nunnally Johnson, Darryl F. Zanuck, Nominee, Best Picture | | | Edmund H. Hansen, Nominee, Best Sound, Recording | | | Nunnally Johnson, Nominee, Best Writing, Screenplay |
|
| | Professional Reviews | Entertainment Weekly
"It's gorgeous, jaw-dropping work, rivaling Toland's deep-focus artistry in CITIZEN KANE." 04/09/2004 p.70USA Today
"As son Tom Joad, Henry Fonda gave the screen performance of his career." 04/09/2004 p.10E Uncut
"[T]he director's most artistic work..." 05/01/2005 p.144 Uncut
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..." 01/01/2006 p.84-85 VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever 7 of 10
John Steinbeck's classic American novel about the Great Depression. We follow the impoverished Joad
Leonard Maltin's Movie & Video Guide 9 of 10
Classic Americana of Okies moving from dust bowl to California during Depression, lovingly brought t - Leonard Maltin
|
| |
|
|
|
