Hollywood (1940)

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Address. 10 IISI&ltlLUZrfliJniiJtl*] By LLEWELLYN MILLER J Outstanding, not only among this season's pictures, but among all of the pictures ever turned out in Hollywood is The Grapes of Wrath, and I venture to predict that, 50 years from now, it will have a prominent place in the histories of Hollywood as one of the great milestones in the labored coming-of-age of the industry. Until very recently, motion pictures, almost without exception, avoided all controversial subjects. Politics were taboo. War was shunned except as a prettified background for a hero who never was more than insignificantly injured. Poverty was shown extensively at the beginnings of pictures, but you were almost sure to win money by betting that the heroine would marry a millionaire in the last reel. And a picture that did not have a happy ending was considered an offense to the box office. There were some magnificent exceptions. All Quiet On the Western Front and Journey's End are two of the great films which left permanent imprint on the thinking of all of those who saw them. A few years ago a new approach to subject matter for films began to evidence itself. Warner Brothers, in particular, began to explore the whole untouched field of current events with such films as I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang, which dealt with convict labor in the South, in Little Caesar, first of the great gangster pictures which had no little part in rousing public feeling against graft in civic affairs, callous corruption in certain city governments. Zola was a passionate retelling of the shocking tale of racial prejudice. More recently, Columbia ventured a sly, absorbing criticism of party political machinery in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. These outstanding films, and a few ... a very few more . . . proved, by the tremendous response from the public, that America of today is eager for drama that reflects problems with which we must deal. We still love romances. We always shall. We still love the happy endings. Nothing is going to change the old human habit of hope. But the whole country is facing facts more steadily today than it has for many years, and now, at long last, no subject really vital to us is likely to be banned from the screen. The Grapes of Wrath proves that. Faithfully, exactly, with a fine integrity, John Steinbeck's book has been brought to the screen with none of the punches pulled, none of the issues evaded. The film starts slowly, unsensationally. Along a magnificent, great, smooth concrete highway clumps a pair of heavy prison boots. There is a little airy chirp from a hidden bird. There is soft wind over the wide farm land. The sun shines brightly on the polished gas station, on the powerful truck in front of it. It looks fine to a man just through with four years of prison. It looks great, and Tom Joad is so eager to be home that he does not notice that the soil is powdery, that there is a film of dust all over everything. They had dusty days before he went to prison. As more and more of the grazing land in Oklahoma went under cultivation, the dust became a nuisance in certain times of the year. But the rains always came and laid it, the crops came up, and it wasn't much trouble until the dry season next year . . . too far ahead to worry about. But those four years away from the world had made a frightening change, not only for his family but for thousands of people just like them. Bad year had followed bad year. Homesteads that had been held free and clear for several generations were mortgaged. More bad years followed, and even the interest could not be wrung out of the dry soil. The banks were frightened, and, to save themselves, turned thousands of small holdings over to big land syndicates. The syndicates ■were frightened, and sent in men with machines to try to produce a profit with big business methods. It was nobody's fault. No one was to blame. But what were the Joads to do? Where were the Joads to go? The Joad family has been so brilliantly cast and played and directed that it is impossible to give top honors, though Jane Darwell, as the courageous, unbeatable Ma Joad, absorbs the mind because of her vivid portrayal of the central character. Some members of the family grew angry, some complained, some were passive and beaten by circumstances. Some just drifted. But Ma did what had to be done without wasting more than a touching moment on regrets. It was Ma who thought of getting Grampa (Charles Grapewin) drunk on soothing syrup when he refused Ginger Rogers in sweat shirt and rubber boots waits for Joel McCrea's approval of her costume for The Primrose Path