Where does "The Grapes Of Wrath" rank among your favourite John Ford films?

Such a classic! Thank you for the reaction. The scene where mother Joad holds the earrings up to her ears breaks my heart every time. It’s like in the moment she remembers a better, happier time and knows it’s never coming back. She’s saying goodbye to hope.

Congratulations on being the first channel to react to this classic film. Based on a classic American novel.

Great to see a reaction to this film! One reason John Ford is arguably the greatest American director of all time is because in just ONE year (1939 - 1940) he made four masterpieces: Stagecoach, Drums Along the Mohawk, The Grapes of Wrath, and The Long Voyage Home (and then, just for fun, he knocked out How Green Was My Valley in 1941.) It's mind-blowing the talent and drive Ford had in his prime.

Henry Fonda was sublime. I HIGHLY recommend The Ox-Bow Incident - one of the finest Westerns ever made and Henry Fonda gives an incredible performance in that as well as 12 Angry Men which may be the best movie ever made imo ;)

Based on the John Steinbeck novel. My parents were children of the Great Depression, growing up in Iowa. My Dad was raised by a single mother and she used to say she was so proud that she never went on relief, working as a housekeeper and caregiver, raising four children. My mother grew up on a farm and said they would eat biscuits and gravy every day and on Sunday they would get bits of ham in it and they had it better than other families, she said. They were able to keep the farm. World War II was the brest thing that ever happend to some of these families. My uncle was a farm worker and went into the Marines, said it was the best job he ever had, even after parachuting into a jungle in New Guinea and getting wounded. My dad joined the submarine service because they got double pay, which he sent back to his mother. Only 4 of every 100 submarine applicants were accepted. He was very proud of that. They were part of what Tom Brokaw dubbed the Greatest Generation -- survived the Depresiion, won WWII and rebuilt the world.

One of John Steinbeck's greatest books. This is usually in most lists of top 50 films all time. They did not understand how to farm, thus the wind blew all of the top soil away, they use different practices today. They were promised a land of milk & honey (Grapes) and all they got was Wrath. Such a great movie. These movies are so much better than modern movies. I guess I grew up an old soul, I was watching these movie as a young lad in the 70s.

This is in my top 3 to 5 favorite movies of all time. It is, in my opinion, an absolute masterpiece, a work of art. The cinematography, by renowned cinematographer Greg Toland, is gorgeous. I love the scene when Casey is talking to Tom in the tent outside the peach camp with the other strikers. As Casey leans forward and back, his face is alternately veiled in black shadow or bathed in light. At that moment he is speaking as a prophet, a mouthpiece of God; the alternate veiling of his face behind the darkness of mystery and revealing of it in the radiance of light is an apt visual representation of his role as the mouthpiece of God, the prophet, in that moment. And he is martyred, as prophets almost always are, just a few moments later. I also love how the film begins and ends with beautiful shots of Tom walking. Tom is a searcher; he is on a quest. At the beginning of the movie, he was on a quest to find his home. But then he found out his home had been taken away. At the end of the film, he is on a quest for something more transcendent, for an answer to the injustice of the world that takes a man's home away from him. In his amazing final speech, Tom says that he's going to search for the meaning of all this inequality and suffering that he and his people have been through. The next cut shows a gorgeous silhouette of him walking against the backdrop of the sky (representative of transcendence). I love the mother's speech about how having a piece of land, a place with boundaries, to call their own somehow made the family whole and one. Ford was the descendant of the exiles of Ireland. He was interested in the plight of exiles, of sojourners in search of a better life. In the modern world, we are all exiles, all sojourners, in a sense. Most of us aren't tied to a place anymore the way people used to be. We aren't anchored, rooted, in a piece of land the way people used to be.

This film and Young Mr. Lincoln show Ford as a true poet of the cinema.

The Graveyard Ghost guy is the same actor who hid in the desk in His Girl Friday.

This is absolutely one of the best films ever made. Qualen's performance ("...some of them...died on it"...). The novel is astounding. And you might want to see Ford's favorite (so he said) film: "The Fugitive" 1947 a drama film starring Henry Fonda and directed by John Ford (appreciate the audio/video balance)

Thanks for reacting to this one. Its a real gem. That final scene between Fonda and Darwell - the way she calls after him - to this day chokes me up.

Great job Sam! I am so tired of reactors believing that the art of film is all CGI.

There is another similar type of film, but made around 30 years later, called 'Bound for Glory', which is based around the same events and times in history. But this movie is also based on how that affected one man's life, (Woody Guthrie). Starring David Carradine as Woody. The real life Tom Joad, and folk icon.

"Seems like the government's got more interest in a dead man than a live one." Fun Fact: John Steinbeck loved the adaptation of his book and said that Henry Fonda as Tom Joad was spot on. From The Past Fact: The bowl Grandma (Zeffie Tibury) eats from just after grace, early in the film, is a fine example of 1930's ring striped stoneware, now a sought after collector's item. Hot Take Fact: According to Henry Fonda, John Ford preferred only one take and little or no rehearsal to catch the most spontaneous moment. For the key climactic final scene between Tom and Ma, Ford didn't even watch the rehearsal. When the time came to shoot, Ford led Fonda and Jane Darwell through the silent action of the scene, preventing them from starting their lines until the two actors were completely in the moment. The Rest Of The Story Fact: Henry Fonda kept the hat he wore in the movie for the rest of his life. Before he passed away in 1982, he gave it to his old friend Jane Withers. Apparently he and Withers, when she was an 8 year old girl and he a young man, did a play together before Fonda made movies. Fonda was so nervous to go onstage that little Jane took his hand, said a little prayer to ease his nerves, and the two of them became good friends for life.

You must realize every major character is a classic actor, well known in Hollywood history, inp[articular John Carradine as the preacher and Jane Darwell as the mother [whom I think should have gotten an academy award for her portrayal of one tough old lady. Later John Carradine's son David Carradine portrayed folk singer Woody Guthrie, of the same era in the 1976 movie called Bound for Glory.

Penny: 1 cent. Nickel: 5 cents. They were giving charity at two for a penny. My grandfather was a union bricklayer outside New York CIty during the depression. To work he had to travel to the Union Hall to see if there was a job for the day. The distance was about 3 miles each way. He could have taken the bus for a nickel. Instead he walked. That's how desperate people were in those days.

Henry Fonda was just AWESOME in this. A very powerful film.

One of my favorites ❤. During the 1930s, the Dust Bowl combined with the Great Depression tested Americans like never before. (Perhaps similar to the Irish Potato Famine?)

So happy you hit this one, fantastic reaction, as always. Great movie (great book also). Another example of the great movie making of 1940-41, pre-World War 2 era. Once World War 2 hit (in the USA), the movies became mostly propaganda for the war effort. But in '40 and '41, you've got John Ford really coming into his own, you've got John Huston and Orson Welles making their debuts in 1941 with "Maltese Falcon" and "Citizen Kane". You've got the indescribable "The Devil And Daniel Webster", you've got these wild comedies like "Hellzapoppin'" or "Sullivan's Travels", you've got the screwball comedies hitting its zenith with "His Girl Friday". Etc etc. It gives me the sense of what American cinema might have been like had the war not "interrupted"! I only recently realized how cool this little period was! They were coming off 1939, which is always considered a big year in movie history, and they were obviously riding the momentum. Maybe I should call it the 1939-1941 period!

John Ford had many classic films but yeah this was one of his best. Based on a classic Steinbeck novel he captured the poverty of the dust bowl and gave us some the best images in movie history.

The lady who played "ma" was in Gone with the wind.

Classic. Tom Joad's lines at the end have inspired millions of people over the decades, including Bruce Springsteen and Rage Against The Machine. The works of John Steinbeck were often assigned reading in schools in California when I was a kid. "Of Mice and Men" typically, but also "The Red Pony", and sometimes "Tortilla Flat" or "Cannery Row". Bob Dylan interprets "Cannery Row" in several of his songs, "Desolation Row" in particular. "The Grapes of Wrath" is considered Steinbeck's masterpiece. At some point back when, farming interests near Bakersfield, California tried to ban the book from their local library. But they failed. The ending of the book is more devastating than the ending of the film. John Ford captures some wonderful vistas in this film. He revisits the dance scene in Fort Apache (1948), also starring Henry Fonda. John Carradine, the actor who played Casy the preacher, enjoyed parts in a lot of cool flicks from back when. His deep voice and his long drawn out face kept him playing spooky characters in horror movies for decades. He played Count Dracula in Billy the Kid Versus Dracula (1966), for example. He landed his first role in 1930 and his last in 1988, the year he passed. His career traces quite a large arc. And on top of that, he is the father of actors David Carradine, Keith Carradine, and Robert Carradine as well as the grandfather of Martha Plimpton.

The Great Depression began in 1929 and lasted until roughly the early 40s. The New Deal ameliorated it to a significant degree, but it it didn't truly end until WW2, when huge orders for armaments started pouring in. Factories that had been closed for years reopened and new ones were constructed, virtually overnight. The demand for labor brought about full employment after more than a decade of unemployment at around 25 percent. Some historians and economists put the figure much higher.

A nickel is worth 5 pennies. The candy was supposed to be 5 cents each, but she sold it 2 for 1 cent.

Richard Zanuck was Darryl Zanuck's son.

Now watch SouthPark's' Over Logging episode.

You can’t watch this movie without getting some history and politics involved. As it happened during the depression and of course money, politics and economics are all involved.

Thank you for this reaction. One if my favorite movies, one of my favorite books, too.

John Steinbeck is my favorite writer. Watch a Documentary on the Dust bowl time and yes it was the 1930s depression era. Very shocking times. 2 other great John Steinbeck books turned into great movies I highly recommend are "East of Eden"(1955) James Deans best performance. "Of Mice and Men" (1939) or (1992) both versions are good.

When I hear you want to visit Arizona and that area, I think that's great. Seems like every other person from the U.K. or Europe wants to go to damn Disney World. Great choice for a film to react to. John Steinbeck is one of the best authors the U.S. ever produced. The film's subject matter makes people squirm to this day. The 1920's was the jazz, flapper, gangster, and, in the U.S., prohibition era. Overall, it was an upbeat, revolutionary decade. Then, in 1929, the stock market crashed in the U.S. and other countries. The Great Depression started, and we didn't really get prosperity back until WWII. The Depression was caused by a few key factors, mainly greed and miscalculation on the part of wealthy people and banks. The problem the farmers in this story have is they were working the land too hard in many states across the Midwest for decades. When a drought came which lasted a few years. tons and tons of valuable topsoil was blown away in historic dust storms. That, and other factors combined to wipe out many family farms in that area at that time.

Joh Steinbeck wrotethe novel ( an American classic)

A great film, one of Fords best.

This really happened.

You should really try To have and have not.. Bogart and Bacall really steam up the screen! I think it’s Bogart’s best film, and that’s saying something!

Have u done Ford’s How Green was My Valley?? The Quiet Man??