THE GRAPES OF WRATH Screening Thursday March 16th at Webster University

“Sure don’t look none too prosperous.”

THE GRAPES OF WRATH (1940) screens Thursday March 16th at Webster University’s Moore Auditorium (470 East Lockwood). The movie starts at 7:30. The screeening is sponsored by Opera Theatre of Saint Louis *(experienceopera.org) who will be staging an opera version of THE GRAPES OF WRATH May 27th, 31st, June 9th, 15th, 17th, 21st, and 25th. Cliff Froehlich, Executive Director of Cinema St. Louis, will introduce and lead a discussion following the screening. This is a FREE event!

John Ford directed so many classics, but THE GRAPES OF WRATH may be his best. Adapted from John Steinbeck’s 1939 novel, THE GRAPES OF WRATH tells of the hardships of the Great Depression on Oklahoma sharecroppers who are forced to migrate to Californian for menial work. The film paints a stark picture ofour country’s most bleak period. A time when unemployment was around 25%, dust was choking off normally reliable farmland, and simply finding enough food to eat could be nearly impossible. THE GRAPES OF WRATH was made when these kinds of conditions were still ravaging the United States.

THE GRAPES OF WRATH made Henry Fonda a star playing Tom Joad. Joad is portrayed in the film’s earlier moments as kind of a shiftless and violent type who has just been let out of jail where he had been sent for killing a man. He seems to want to brag about this to a truck driver who gives him a ride out to his family’s farm. Once he gets there, he encounters Casey (John Carradine), a washed-up preacher. It seems that since Tom has been away, things have gotten so bad in rural Oklahoma that even preachers are losing faith. Tom Joad then learns that his family, among several others, have been ordered off their farms by either banks or faceless corporations that own them. Tom Joad has to grow up pretty quick after meeting up with his family members, and soon enough they load themselves and their belongings into an old truck and are headed out to California to find work.The Joads encounter all sorts of hardships and prejudice on their journey, and things are even worse once they arrive in California.

THE GRAPES OF WRATH looks great. B/W has never looked this good. Even though some of the sets were obviously sound stages, you won’t really mind. The film is preachy, but these were desperate times back then.. All of the performances ring true, especially Jane Darwell as Tom’s mother. She won an Oscar, as did director Ford. The film is bleak, but in its final frames there is a definite twinge of optimism.

Don’t miss the opportunity to see THE GRAPES OF WRATH on the big screen when it plays Wednesday night at Webster University.

The Webster University Film Series site can be found HERE