Rating: 
Summary: he Grapes of Wrath
Review: What a Great movie, one of the best. Authentic to the core! I was brought up knowing all about the depression and the okies. My parents as well as grandparents, aunts, uncles, to name a few. All came from Oklahoma to California during the depression. They lived this movie, in every sense of the word. My Mama loved watching this, even though she cried throughout it. The okies were tough, strong and proud folks. As Jane Darwell so aptly put it " were the people and the people keepa agoin" A true American classic!
Rating: 
Summary: 5 star movie -- up until the last 60 seconds.
Review: This movie was almost worthy of the book, and was deserving of 5 stars, until the last 60 seconds. Then Ma Joad gives her "We're the people" speech (which ends something like "We're the people, and the people keep a'goin'" or "We're the people, and the people keep on" or something like that). Then the music track swells inspiringly, and the film ends on an upbeat note.HUH? Grapes of Wrath was NOT an upbeat book. The story was one of despair, and at the end of the book the Joads were in very dire straights indeed -- no money, no food, no shelter, and Tom on the lam from the law. The ending of the movie -- which other Amazon reviewers have inexplicably praised -- completely distorted Steinbeck's message.
Rating:
Summary: An Oklahoma family's hardship during the Great Depression
Review: This 1940 film, based on John Steinbeck's novel depicts the searing injustices to a family of Oklahoma sharecroppers during the Depression. Who can ever forget the Joad family, forced off their land during those difficult times? Henry Fonda is cast as the older son, out on parole, but who chooses to travel to California with his family in search of jobs. John Carradine is a former preacher who joins the family. And Jane Darwell, cast as Ma Joad, won an academy award for her performance. I read the book years ago and it will forever be seared in my memory. And even though the film left out the most memorable scene of all, I was moved by the family's plight, as they joined the great migration to California in a rickety truck. The film has stood the time well if viewed as a history lesson. It was a horrible time in America and it certainly is realistic in depicting the times in general and the plight of the Okies in particular. Some of the dialogue though, is a bit too preachy, and it's hard to believe that it would have come from a poor share-cropper's mouth. The hardship was relentless and hard to watch and there was little opportunity for the characters to make choices. However, this is just nit picking on my part. On the whole, I feel it is a serious film well worth viewing, especially for those who find it difficult to understand what living through the Depression was like. Of course I recommend it. It's a classic.
Rating:
Summary: A great American movie. Watch it again and again.
Review: Based on the novel by John Steinbeck, "The Grapes of Wrath" is the story of an Oklahoma family moving to California during the Great Depression. They move to California to find better work and jobs, only to find that there s little opportunity. The family goes through rough times, but they hold together because they know that they can preserver. "The Grapes of Wrath" is a very well made movie. The acting is superb from all sides. I didn't notice any melodramatics from anyway, though there might be an occasion or two. The only other problem I had with them movie was some occasional slowdown. But I don't mind, because I'm not one of those people who expect excitement every second. Henry Fonda is great as Tom Joad. A convict out on parole, he goes with his family to California. Some experiences along the way help to change him and make him a better person. He soon realizes that people are more important and vows to devote his help to those who need it more and to those who aren't as fortunate. He got an Oscar nomination,
But was unsuccessful. The film also got a Best Picture nomination, but lost to "Rebecca", the first American film of Alfred Hitchcock (Then again, I've rarely agreed with the Academy). Jane Darwell, however, won Best Supporting Actress as Ma Joad, the "emotional anchor" of the family, and Director John Ford picked up is second award. He would also win one the following year to "How Green Was My Valley" and in 1952 for "The Quiet Man". Another of the film's best virtues is in the cinematography. There is usage of low angle shots in interior scenes (Rare in movies at this time because that's where the equipment was placed) and deep focus in several scenes (Where everything in the scene is focused in). If it looks familiar, that's because it was done by Gregg "Citizen Kane" Toland.
Rating:
Summary: "We're the People"
Review: This is it! This is the movie to show to your preteen children to give them an understanding of what it means to struggle for something, for the barest of necessities. John Steinbeck and John Ford did America proud, allowing us to look inward to discover solutions for our social problems. As a country we would do well to do the same again. Tom Joad (Henry Fonda) and Ma Joad (Jane Darwell) are the central characters of this film, but many other, richly defined, roles can be found here. The young husband who deserts his wife because he's ashamed that he can't provide for her ... the waitress whose, somewhat hardened, heart is softened by the plight of the Joads ... the Grandfather who dreams of California and eating grapes while their juice runs down his chin ... the grieving father warning the Joads of the hard times ahead in California ... and who can forget the family friend who refuses to leave Oklahoma, and slides further and further into insanity as his entire community disappears. Each secondary member of the cast has something invaluable to add to the story and the standout is the great John Carradine as the disillusioned, x-preacher, Casey. It is Casey who helps Tom to recognize the injustice in their 'migrant' world, and Casey who provides the supreme sacrifice and catalyst for Tom's promised future of being "there" for the little guy. Yes, this movie can fall victim to overt sentimentalism, but the underlying feeling of injustice is probably the main 'character' in the story. While it's overall theme can be depressing, you can't help but smile when Ma Joad says "We're the people that live." I absolutely love this movie, I think you will too.
Rating:
Summary: DUST BOWL EMMIGRANTS TO CALIFORNIA
Review: This is one of the truly great American films that depict a devastating time in the lives of the farmers that inhabited Oklahoma when over farming had created the "dust bowl". These people moved west in overwhelming numbers. A sort of history lesson by viewing Americans making necessary and courageous moves to survive and live......if you've never seen this movie, make it a "must see"......
Rating:
Summary: A POEM OF A FILM
Review: This isn't one of those films which need a lot of explaining to tell why they deserve to be called great. To those who know something about John Steinbeck's novel, it is enough to say that the picture is way ahead of anything even the most hopeful had reason to expect. It is all beautifully direct and literal, like clear-cut themes in a symphony. There is Tom Joad, on parole from prison, going back to his family on their farm. The shell of a farmhouse, deserted, the family blown out by dust-storms and tractor-farming. The family, found again, setting out westward in their junky old truck, for work and a place to settle on the soil once more. The long trek west, over the endless inter-state highways, joing the miserable stream of other families driven away from their own birthright and seeking a promised land of home and work again. Nunnally Johnson, who wrote the screenplay, had to do something more with Steinbeck's book than cut pages out of it and paste them together. He had to dramatise it, which meant concentrating its essence while he built it to mounting emotion and action. If Johnson's script narrows the gist of the story to only what happens to the Joad family, director John Ford had spread it wide again, in the way that only a movie can do. The chief thing about the acting is that it almost never seems to be acting at all. Perhaps John Carradine and Grant Mitchell give an occasional impression of doing their stuff, but the rest, from the most casual extra to the stars, might have been caught in some episode of actual life. Henry Fonda and Jane Darwell are the most important because they embody the main spirit of the drama: they both fill their parts with such life, that they are peerless in their playing. There is, too Ford's fondness for mist and shadows and music-but all in their place here, integral and rarely mannered. THE GRAPES OF WRATH proved that Hollywood could lead the world in serious as well as merely entertaining pictures; this is a poem of a film.
Rating: 
Summary: A TRUE STORY AND TRIBUTE TO THE GREAT DEPRESSION!
Review: My father lived this story in real life. He too has seen the video and rates it very high on accuracy. My father is 78 years old and one of the few remaining OKIES left from the GREAT DEPRESSION. Every time he sees the movie "THE GRAPES OF WRATH" he starts to cry, because he lived the hard ship and pain of losing his home and being hungry for lack of food or money to buy any. This movie is one of the great treasures of our history!!!
Rating:
Summary: Triumph of the Human Spirit in the Face of Adversity
Review: Henry Fonda leads a stellar cast in this classic about a family's tireless struggle during the Oklahoma "dust bowl" years. -- Unable to feed their family, the Jodes leave their home in Depression Era Oklahoma for a chance at a new life. Their dream of prosperity doesn't come true; instead they find exploitation, greed and indifference in the faces of people they turn to for help. -- This is a powerful commentary on the human condition, climaxed by the scene where Fonda has a beautiful moment promising never to give up hope, never to stop fighting for "the little man". "The Grapes Of Wrath" is true Americana, a wonderful film to watch and cherish for all generations of Americans to come! Highly recommended!
Rating:
Summary: A classic of the human condition
Review: I think it is most ironic that independent filmmakers claim to despise the Hollywood film in favor of making "personal cinema". Especially when one looks at the films of perhaps the man who worked most successfully within the scrict confines of the Hollywood dream factory. Director John Ford managed to be very much a part of the "system" and yet also made several stunningly personal films. His films hold up well today becuase they display his personal love of character, land, place (there is a difference), time, honor, tradition and ritual. The Grapes of Wrath is one of his finest pictures. His obsessions and political leanings come to life in Steinbeck's haunting, searing and highly religious narrative. I agree with many other reviewers who believe that the film is largely leftist propaganda. Certainly the other great political film directors Leni Reifenstahl and Sergie Eisenstien can be see in many of Ford's compositions. Certainly this is true in the masked stormtrooper montage. But propaganda, like the very medium of film itself, operates on pure emotion. This film is loaded with one emotional image after another. The photography of Gregg Toland matches the best of Life Magazine in its immediacy and realism, while at the same time dramatically recapturing the best of German Expressionsim. There are so many frames that could stand proudly next to the works of Adams, Bourke-White, Wood and Robert Capa as examples of photographic art. The cast is uniformly excellent. The sincere and utterly real performances of John Carradine, Russell Simpson, Jane Darwell, John Qualen and the great Charley Grapewin all give performances that are on the level with anything ever produced from an Actor's Studio graduate. Enough cannot be possibly said about Henry Fonda's performance as Tom Joad. How fitting that Fonda would play Henry Stamper in the film version of Kesey's Sometimes a Great Notion as Old Henry S. really is in many ways Tom Joad all grown up.Simply put it is one of the finest characterizations ever captured on film. He ws not just an American Icon, he was a fine dramatic artist. The script retains much of the best of Steinbeck's novel and many of its great quotes. Yes, it does preach, but never at the expense of the narrative. This is a lesson so many "serious" film makers have yet to learn. The film has not dated in term of its impact on the heart. The Grapes of Wrath is about a specific time and place in American History yes, but it is also about what it means to be a human being. In that sense it transcends nationalism and is a fine work of World Literature. It is an equal with Citizen Kane as one of the finest films ever made.
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