#21: The Grapes of Wrath

Okay, so I'm living in Monterey County, CA, home of world famous Nobel Prize winning author John Steinbeck, and I'm realizing that I have no concept of what he wrote, or why. (My literary ignorance is a little embarrassing - I skipped AP English in high school because I was going to major in Computer Science in college, and, yes, I was quite lazy my senior year.) So, I figure that this is a perfect opportunity to familiarize myself with a renowned author's work, as well as take another movie off my AFI list.

Going into the movie, I had a very vague notion of what to expect, plot wise. There's dust, depression, hardship, and some farmers. Other than that (and the 7 Oscar nominations and 2 wins from the DVD case) I really didn't know what the next two hours would hold. I was eager to educate myself, (yes, reading the book is something I plan to do) and come away with some appreciation of Steinbeck's work.

So, after the movie I can honestly say that it was not what I had expected.  I don't think that I had a clear mental picture I had in my head for the film, but for whatever reason, I think that I had pictured it taking place in the 1800's - even though I knew that it was a depression era story.  That is to say that it was much more modern than I had expected.  The movie itself was very well done and holds up well over time.  A lot of movies from the 40's and 50's end up coming across as very corny: corny acting with very dated dialogue. The Grapes of Wrath, however avoided that, for the most part.

The story was very good - the hardships of the Joad family as they are forced, by a combination of bad weather and farming modernization, to leave their Oklahoma sharecropped farm in search of work and a better life in California. As I learned a bit later, Oklahoma had the highest rate of tenant farmers and, when the system began to fall apart, there was a large scale migration of people to California looking for work. The movie follows the family as they travel, detailing the hardships on the road as well as the ones they face in California. Desperate for work, they fall victim to a farmer's strikebreaking scheme, as well as face distrust and incivility in the many migrant camps which they stay in during their travels.

The movie had many poignant scenes, most revolving around human dignity, or the loss thereof. The diner where Pa buys bread; the treatment and lack of information at the strike; the shot woman at the transient camp; when they reach the government camp in California and are treated fairly.

I found it to be a very thought provoking movie. While it was a story, in every sense of the word, I also saw it as a historical piece, a quasi-documentary made by people who had lived through and could remember the Great Depression. I don't know that a film made in modern times would be able to capture some of the same feelings that a film made so close to the source time period could.  It brought to mind the unity that America experienced after 9/11.  It's a shame that it takes disasters like these to bring the country together as one.

#100: Yankee Doodle Dandy

Okay, for my first movie to get this thing rolling, we'll start at the bottom, with #100, Yankee Doodle Dandy. Now, I have not seen some of these movies in over six years, and I'm using my foggy memory and the spotty notes I wrote just after viewing them, so take the first few of these that I write with a grain of salt.

Yankee Doodle Dandy is a musical detailing the life of actor/composer George M. Cohan, whom I'd never heard of prior to watching. I'm no musical history scholar, and I found him a rather despicable fellow, very arrogant and full of himself. During the movie I was actually rooting against him, hoping that he would fail. The movie probably meant more to audiences of the time, who would have been familiar with Cohan and his work.

Educationally, I learned that he wrote Over There and Yankee Doodle Dandy (natch), and these two songs, which have endured over the years, apparently were at the heart of the major criticisms during his life – he only could write lowbrow, patriotic, flag-waving material for the masses.

The scene that most struck me at the time of viewing was when Cohan, fed up with his critics, set out to write an intelligent drama to silence them. The night of the premiere, however, he opted to be down the street starring in one of his trademark patriotic shows, rather than at his 'serious' piece. The drama was so terrible that the reviewers left during the second act. Cohan closed it two weeks later.

Looking back, six years removed from my original viewing, I had not remembered that particular scene (good thing I've saved nearly every .doc file I've ever typed!), but two things that do stick out in my mind are:
1) the vaudeville scenes from Cohan's youth. To a modern audience they seem odd, and I watched them with a historical fascination of a bygone entertainment medium. I can imagine viewers of Yankee Doodle Dandy, familiar with both Cohan and vaudeville seeing this as a wistful remembrance of days long past, watching it as they are in the relatively 'new' medium of motion pictures. Kind of how I feel about computers whenever I watch WarGames...
2) STIX NIX HIX PIX - don't ask me why I remember this, but after this movie I understood the Animaniacs song Variety Speak.

I can say that this is a movie that I probably would not watch again, and I am a big fan of musicals. It's most likely because I was unfamiliar with Cohan and his work, so that didn't draw me in. Also, as a movie character, Cohan was unlovable and unenjoyable to watch. In my humble estimation, he was the Lee Greenwood of his day. Sure, we all know Proud To Be An American, but could you have identified it as a Lee Greenwood hit?