Not Exactly the Santa Fe Trail

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"I have given you fair warning. You can keep your heads or lose 'em as you wish."

John Brown (Raymond Massey)

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If you have never seen "Santa Fe Trail," which made its debut 75 years ago today, I guess it is important to know something before you do see it.

The movie has nothing whatsoever to do with the real Santa Fe Trail, which was a 19th–century transportation route that ran from Franklin in western Missouri to Santa Fe in northern New Mexico.

Rather, it was a pretty basic account of the events surrounding John Brown's raid at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia) — about 800 miles east of Franklin — less than two years before the start of the Civil War.

(Well, I suppose a rather tenuous connection could made from the fact that the trail started in Missouri and the railroad that would replace the Santa Fe Trail as a commercial route couldn't be built until Brown was driven from neighboring Kansas, an event that was re–created in "Santa Fe Trail," but making that mental connection would require the viewer to know certain details about American history that were never explored in "Santa Fe Trail" and a garden–variety moviegoer in 1940 was no more likely to know than one in 2015.)

It wasn't entirely literal history, by any stretch of the imagination, but it was a rousing good story, and it had a great cast.

It had Errol Flynn in it so audiences knew it would have lots of action and romance.

It had Olivia de Havilland in it so audiences knew they would be treated to a top–notch performance from an actress who, although her movie career was only a few years old at the time, was already regarded as being an actress in the classical mold.

It had Raymond Massey, who had been established as a classical actor for at least a decade and lent some of his personal credibility to the role of John Brown — even though, as I say, the movie is not the definitive word on the history of either the mid–19th century or John Brown.

And it had Ronald Reagan. No one knew at the time, of course, that Reagan would be elected president 40 years later. In the role of George Armstrong Custer, Reagan had a bit of a rivalry with Flynn's character, Jeb Stuart, that supposedly went back to their days at West Point.

I've been a student of American history most of my life. I will readily concede that I am not an authority on military history or military school history, and I don't know enough about Custer's individual relationships with his fellow cadets to pass judgment — but I do know that Custer had one of the worst personal conduct records in the school's history and was nearly expelled several times. Many of his demerits were received for pulling tricks on classmates so such a rivalry would not be inconceivable.

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But Jeb Stuart must have been a stand–in for all those who were pranked by Custer. Stuart and Custer were never classmates. Stuart was born six years before Custer and graduated three years before Custer enrolled at West Point.

For that matter, Stuart was a West Point classmate of several people who had noteworthy military careers, according to the movie, but it played fast and loose with the facts, just as it did in its account of John Brown.

If you believed the movie, Stuart was a classmate of James Longstreet, George Pickett, Phil Sheridan and John Bell "Sam" Hood as well as Custer, but Stuart was a teenager when Longstreet and Pickett graduated from West Point, and Stuart, as I say, had been gone for three years when Custer enrolled there. Stuart was at West Point when Sheridan and Hood were there, but they graduated a year before he did. I have seen no evidence that Stuart knew either one.

Also, I have heard nothing of a romance between Stuart and the woman known as Kit Carson Holliday, the name of de Havilland's character. Stuart was married to a woman named Flora and was reportedly devoted to her until his death during the Civil War.

The only Kit Carsons I ever heard of were men. I can only assume that Kit Carson Holliday was entirely fictional.

Another inconvenient fact. When you look at pictures of John Brown in history books, he always has a long beard, but he didn't grow his beard until after he left Kansas. Nevertheless, in "Santa Fe Trail," he is portrayed with a long beard.

But Hollywood never let the facts get in the way of a good story. (Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?)

And, as I say, it was a good story.

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It just wasn't literal history.

So if you are a student and you want to write a paper about John Brown or any of the other famous folks who were portrayed in "Santa Fe Trail," I implore you — don't use this movie as one of your sources.

Watch it and enjoy it. It's very entertaining.

But please don't treat it as a reputable factual source.

The Mother of Romantic Comedies

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Tracy (Katharine Hepburn): If you just face the facts squarely as I did.

Margaret (Mary Nash): We both might face the fact that neither of us have proved to be a very great success as a wife.

Tracy: We just picked the wrong first husbands, that's all.

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I suppose it is tempting to call "The Philadelphia Story," which premiered on this date in 1940, the best of Jimmy Stewart's career. After all, he received his only Best Actor Oscar for his performance in that movie — although he was nominated for "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," "It's a Wonderful Life," "Harvey" and "Anatomy of a Murder," all favorites of mine.

Frankly, if Stewart could only win Best Actor once, I would have preferred that he win it for any of those performances instead. Don't get me wrong. "The Philadelphia Story" was good, but it just wasn't unique, at least in the way those others were. Still, its influence was far reaching.

I suppose it can't really be said that "The Philadelphia Story" performance was the best by Katharine Hepburn, who was the star of the show and was nominated for Best Actress (she had a dozen Best Actress nominations in her career), but she didn't win (Ginger Rogers won for "Kitty Foyle").

Poor Cary Grant wasn't even nominated — and his performance in "The Philadelphia Story" is regarded as his best by many film critics.
In hindsight, I guess you could call "The Philadelphia Story" the mother of romantic comedies.

"The Philadelphia Story" certainly occupies an important place in the story of Hepburn's career. She won the Best Actress Oscar in 1934 and was nominated again in 1936, but her career had been on a downward spiral prior to this day in 1940. She had even been labeled "box office poison" so it could rightfully be said that "The Philadelphia Story" was what turned her career around — and made it possible for her to be nominated nine more times and to win three.

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Without "The Philadelphia Story," which was the fifth–most popular movie of 1941 (earning more than $2.3 million in North America), it is quite possible that Hepburn's career would have vanished into oblivion.

So even though she didn't win the Oscar, she probably won something that she valued more.

It was the kind of romantic comedy that was most popular in the '30s and '40s — one in which a married couple get divorced, dally with others, make their exes jealous and then get back together. Well, that's probably oversimplified for most of the movies in that genre — but it pretty much sums up the plot of "The Philadelphia Story."

And there was probably no one better prepared for the role he played in it than Grant. What the earthy John Wayne was to the western the debonair Cary Grant was to the romantic comedy.

Hepburn and Grant played a couple who apparently had married on something of a whim, then got divorced. Two years later, Grant showed up at Hepburn's home just before she was to marry someone else. Hepburn's character was a member of a socially prominent family so, naturally, her wedding drew folks from the press, one of whom was Stewart.

The stage was set for some high–society conflicts. In fact, "the stage" is an appropriate noun to use because "The Philadelphia Story" began life as a stage play. Hepburn acquired the film rights to it with the intention of using it as her comeback springboard.

Mission accomplished.

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Macaulay Connor (Jimmy Stewart): Doggone it, C.K. Dexter Haven. Either I'm gonna sock you or you're gonna sock me.

C.K. Dexter Haven (Cary Grant): Shall we toss a coin?

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If you've seen a documentary on the golden age of moviemaking, you have probably seen the memorable scene early in the movie when Grant's character, as he leaves Hepburn, puts his palm on her face and pushes her back inside the house. In conversations I have had with movie fans, that scene is probably second only to the one in which James Cagney grinds grapefruit into Mae Clarke's face in "Public Enemy" on the Most Memorable scale.

Kind of similar scenes. But not entirely.

"Public Enemy" wasn't a madcap romantic comedy, though, and "The Philadelphia Story" was. I'll leave all its quirky twists and turns for you to discover for yourself. That's the real fun of it.

'Fantasia': A Live Action/Animation Triumph

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Mickey Mouse: [Pulling on Stokowski's coat] Mr. Stokowski! Mr. Stokowski!

[Mickey whistles to get Stokowski's attention]

Mickey Mouse: My congratulations, sir!

Leopold Stokowski: [shaking hands with Mickey] Congratulations to you, Mickey!

Mickey Mouse: Gee, thanks! Heh heh! Well, so long! I'll be seeing ya!

Leopold Stokowski: Goodbye!

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Classical music and cough drops. That's what I think of when I think of Walt Disney's "Fantasia," which premiered on this day in 1940.

I was a senior in high school when I saw "Fantasia" for the first time. I had seen other Walt Disney movies, of course, just not that one. And I probably wouldn't have seen it then, had it not been for the fact that I was in love and my girlfriend talked me into seeing it when it was being shown one night on one of the college campuses in my hometown.

I don't know why I hadn't seen it before. It doesn't seem to have been a conscious choice that I made, but maybe it was. Maybe I saw or heard about something that was in it that I didn't like and decided I didn't want to see the movie, but I honestly have no memory of anything like that.

And, while I probably wouldn't have said this at the time, it would have been a mistake never to have seen it.

If I did make a conscious decision not to see it, it was probably because of the classical music. I didn't care for much classical music when I was 17. My tastes have changed since I was a teenager — it happens to all of us — and today I am inclined to view "Fantasia" as a multimedia triumph.

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The movie opened with a fellow named Deems Taylor, a composer/music critic, who explained to the audience that "Fantasia" had "three kinds of music ... First, there's the kind that tells a definite story. Then there's the kind that, while it has no specific plot, does paint a series of more or less definite pictures. Then there's a third kind, music that exists simply for its own sake."

The composition that would open the movie, Taylor said, was of the third kind. It is called absolute music, and Taylor said it would be accompanied by images on the screen that might be like the mental images one would have while listening to the music being performed in a concert hall.

The result was a two–hour experience that was, simultaneously, like ones I had had at home and unlike any I had ever had.

My parents made sure I was exposed to all kinds of music when I was growing up. My mother loved bluegrass, my father liked Middle Eastern music, and they both liked classical music. I added some personal favorites to the list — rock music, of course, and jazz and blues. As a result, my music collection looks like a rummage sale — albeit a classy rummage sale.

The music wasn't entirely unfamiliar to me. But the Walt Disney animation was a new twist on things.

And there was no telling what kind of images would be conjured by the music.

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Probably the most famous segment of the movie was the "Sorcerer's Apprentice" starring Mickey Mouse.

That, as I understand it, was the inspiration for the movie — a short cartoon of the "Sorcerer's Apprentice." Disney and conductor Leopold Stokowski concluded that the concept of merging animation and classical music with live action imagery was too good to limit to a single cartoon so they went about putting together a two–hour movie.

I had no complaints about the music that was included in the movie, but at the time I would have liked to have seen "Peter and the Wolf" included. As a child, I remember listening to a recording of "Peter and the Wolf" and enjoyed it immensely. It was probably my first real introduction to classical music.

I learned later that Disney made a feature based on the "Sorcerer's Apprentice" in 1946 that was originally meant to be a sequel to "Fantasia." Great minds, huh?

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Oh, and about those cough drops ...

We went to see this movie at about this time of the year, and I had a cold. Karen had a very strong nurturing instinct, and she insisted that I pop a cough drop in my mouth before we went to the movie. The flavor of wild cherries always seems to be in my mouth whenever I see "Fantasia," and I haven't used cough drops since that afternoon.

The American Film Institute rated "Fantasia" No. 58 on its 1998 list of the top 100 movies of the previous 100 years. Oddly, it received no Oscar nominations, not even for music or animation.

But 75 years later it is still one of the best animated motion pictures you will ever see.

Making an Escape to 'Boom Town'

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"Now, how can a guy be breaking the law when he's trying to save the resources of this country? He didn't know that he was doin' anything that you might call conservation, but bein' one of the best oilmen there is, he's got the right hunch about oil. He knows it took billions of years to put it there, and takin' it out at the rate we're goin', there won't be any oil left in the good U.S.A."

Square John (Spencer Tracy)

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Interesting thing about the movies — well, actually, this particular stream of consciousness began when I was watching a movie from 1939, which is often regarded as the greatest year in the history of the movies, and it re–emerges from time to time, usually when I am writing about one of the movies of the '30s or '40s.

As I am today.

It was 75 years ago today that "Boom Town" an adventure about some oil wildcatters (Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy), made its debut. It wasn't the best movie ever made, but it was enjoyable enough, and it featured four of the biggest names in Hollywood at the time — Gable, Tracy, Claudette Colbert and Hedy Lamarr. (Frank Morgan, who may be best remembered for his part in "The Wizard of Oz," made it five names.)

And that is where my stream of consciousness comes in.

The movies of the '30s and '40s were almost entirely about escapism. In the '30s, nearly all the movies that dealt with the economic realities of the Great Depression were presented in such a way that the protagonist(s) rose above the circumstances and found success anyway. In other words, those movies encouraged hope. There were a few — like "The Grapes of Wrath" — that told it like it was and pulled few, if any, punches. But, mostly, the movies of that day were about other times, other places, other people. They were adaptations of great works of literature, Day–to–day life in the Depression was bad enough — for awhile, about a quarter of America's adult population was out of work — and money was precious enough that people would seldom pay to sit in a theater and watch other people struggling as they did.

They couldn't afford to go anywhere, so they went to the movies for a couple of hours — to escape. My grandmother once told me that the movie stars of that time were more than movie stars. They were like friends. People had their favorite stars, and they went to see every movie they made. Then as now, studios were interested in pairings that were profitable; what could be more profitable than bringing together four popular stars?

A few modern movie stars inspire that kind of loyalty — but not many. Maybe they are overruled by the prices that are charged for movie tickets these days.

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"Boom Town" reunited the stars of "It Happened One Night," the unexpected hit of 1934 — Gable and Colbert. Their partnership didn't have the same sizzle that it had six years earlier, but it must have been great for fans of Gable and Colbert to see them together again — even if it was in an inferior movie. Turned out, it was their last on–screen pairing.

If one is bound and determined to find an agenda in a movie, it probably isn't too hard with "Boom Town." Its message of unfettered capitalism does seem obvious — it may have seemed just as obvious to audiences three–quarters of a century ago — and it also extols the virtues of entrepreneurship.

The story was far from perfect, but it made up for it in sheer star power. Well, unless you were a fan of Spencer Tracy. Seemed he was always getting the short end of the stick from Gable — mostly in matters of the heart.

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Both named John, Gable's character was called "Big John" and Tracy's was called "Square John." For starters, Big John stole Square John's girl (Colbert). Then, when Square John discovered that Big John had been having an affair (with Lamarr), he offered to marry the mistress in order to save Big John's marriage.

But in matters of the head, my memory is that Square John always came out on top. They both had their times of booms and busts, but my impression, by the time the movie ended, was that Tracy's character had enjoyed more economic success.

Tracy, I have heard, was fond of Gable, but "Boom Town" was the third — and last — movie they made together. It was a capsule of all the things that Tracy didn't like about working with Gable. He didn't like taking second billing to Gable in movie credits, and he didn't like being Gable's "eunuch."

"Boom Town" was nominated for two Oscars — Best Black and White Cinematography and Best Special Effects.

Hitchcock Diplomacy

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"I came 4,000 miles to get a story. I get shot at like a duck in a shooting gallery, I get pushed off buildings, I get the story, and then I've got to shut up."

John (Joel McCrea)

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Contrary to what you may have always believed, Alfred Hitchcock didn't spend his whole career directing movies about psychotic slasher killers. True, there was usually a dead body involved — but not always.

In "Foreign Correspondent," the Hitchcock movie that premiered 75 years ago today, there was a dead body or two, but they were elements of the tale, not the tale itself. The story started with a New York editor's concern about the growing crisis in Europe — and his desire to prevent a war and the resultant loss of life — prior to the outbreak of World War II. He was frustrated with the foreign correspondents who contributed little to the public's understanding of what was happening across the Atlantic. He wanted a reporter, preferably one who had covered the crime beat and had no real opinion of what was happening in the world — and could therefore be counted on to provide reasonably balanced reports. (Having covered the police beat as a reporter for a time in my career, I kind of resent that stereotype.) Thus, he chose Joel McCrea, whose character's only initial concern was whether his new appointment would come with an expense account.

After arriving in Europe, McCrea's first assignment was a peace conference in Amsterdam, where he was looking for an elusive Dutch diplomat. The diplomat was assassinated as McCrea stepped out of the crowd to greet him.

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I guess that editor was right about McCrea and the need to have a reporter on the story. In his quest for the assassin, McCrea found himself in a windmill — where, it turned out, the real diplomat was being held. The man McCrea saw shot was a lookalike, a decoy.

That was followed by some spine–tingling Hitchcockesque suspense in which one couldn't help seeing glimpses of things to come. Still, it was a different kind of Hitchcock movie. If you've never seen it — and you think "Psycho" is all you need to know about Hitchcock — you're in for a real surprise — as well as a real treat — when you see it.

McCrea's character really gave his editor what he wanted — an open, inquisitive and creative mind who found all sorts of ways to get around obstacles. McCrea's love interest was 19–year–old Laraine Day, playing the daughter of a local politician. Don't let her age fool you. Her character was very articulate, as when she had to step in at the last minute as featured speaker when the diplomat failed to show up.

"I think the world has been run long enough by well–meaning professionals," she said. "We might give the amateurs a chance now."

And she could be tough, too, when the situation called for it.

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As a Hitchcock fan, I am always inclined to think that any year in which one of his movies was showing in theaters — and that was most of the years in roughly a four–decade span — was Hitchcock's year, but 1940 really was Hitch's year. At the Academy Awards, "Foreign Correspondent" was one of two Hitchcock movies nominated for Best Picture. The other was "Rebecca," which went on to win the award. It beat some pretty good competition, too — "The Grapes of Wrath," "The Philadelphia Story," "The Great Dictator."

I think the Academy made the right choice. "Rebecca" was a better movie, but "Foreign Correspondent" was deserving of recognition as well. Both were fiction, but "Foreign Correspondent" was a vision based on what was known at the time of what might happen in a not–so–distant future. Sometimes, I suppose, the vision was inadequate, but trying to tell the future based on a limited amount of information was what made the project so challenging.

Deservedly, Hitchcock was nominated for Best Director, too — but for "Rebecca," not "Foreign Correspondent."

"Foreign Correspondent" received six Oscar nominations in all. In addition to Best Picture, it was nominated for Best Supporting Actor, Best Original Screenplay, Best Black and White Art Direction, Best Black and White Cinematography and Best Special Effects (which isn't hard to understand, once you've seen McCrea crawling along the exteriors of windmills and hotels in scenes that must have served as preparation for the Mount Rushmore scene in "North by Northwest") — but lost all six.

The Task of Living

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"It seems to me, once in your life, before you die, you ought to see a country where they don't speak any English, and they don't even want to."

Mrs. Gibbs (Fay Bainter)

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Martha Scott was a good actress, one who has not been given enough credit — perhaps because, in a career that spanned seven decades, from the stage to the big screen to the TV screen, she was only nominated for a Best Actress Oscar once.

That was for her performance in "Our Town," which premiered on this day in 1940. She lost — but, to be fair, she had some stiff competition. She was up against Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis, Joan Fontaine and the winner, Ginger Rogers.

"Our Town" also received nominations for Best Picture, Best Sound Recording, Best Score, Best Original Score and Best Black and White Art Direction. It deserved all six nominations — and lost all six awards.

To more sophisticated 21st–century eyes and ears, "Our Town" probably seems hopelessly corny, but to me it seems pretty representative of small–town America well into the 20th century. There were things about the story that reminded me of the then–small town in Arkansas where I grew up. It was set in the first decade of the 20th century in New Hampshire, right next door to Vermont, which my family visited when I was a child because my parents had friends there, and that small New Hampshire town easily could have been the small Vermont town in which my parents' friends lived.

It was the kind of place where milk and newspapers were home–delivered on a daily basis, and nobody felt the need to lock the doors before going to bed at night. Changes did come to the fictional town — Grover's Corners — as they did in my hometown but at a glacial pace. The most important changes were the ordinary, everyday things that were happening in the lives of the town's residents — births, deaths, weddings, going to school, going to work, falling in love, falling out of love. You know, life.

Because that really is what is going on — life, whether it is in the big city or the small town. People are living their lives, doing the best they can under sometimes difficult circumstances. Sometimes the challenges seem to be too great and the rewards too few, and that seems to draw people together. It's all part of life, be it in New York City or Grover's Corners, at the turn of the 20th century or the turn of the 21st.

Scott played Emily, the young bride of George (William Holden), and it is about this couple that the story revolved, from their first meeting to their tenuous courtship to their wedding day — to the day when Emily died in childbirth, and George and the family took her to the town cemetery for her burial. Grief, of course, is a part of life, too, and Emily's death was devastating for George.

The movie was based on a play in which Scott played Emily so she was reprising a role she knew well. The movie retained many of the tactics of the stage play — for example, the presence of the narrator (called the Stage Manager) who, along with the audience, observed the events, the joys and the sorrows of Grover's Corners.

When Emily died in the stage play, the theater audience observed her conversation with her mother–in–law, who had died some time before, as the mourners trickled away from the cemetery. The scene was effectively re–created in the movie.

Against the advice of her mother–in–law and the others in the cemetery, Emily chose to go back and re–live a random day in her life. When it was over, she delivered a memorable tribute to the world of the living: "Goodbye, goodbye, world. Goodbye, Grover's Corners ... Mama and Papa. Goodbye to clocks ticking and Mama's sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new–ironed dresses and hot baths ... and sleeping and waking up. Oh, earth, you're too wonderful for anybody to realize you."

"Our Town" was remade for TV in 1977 with Glynnis O'Connor playing Scott's part — passably but not exceptionally.

Martha Scott did it better.

Would 'The Grapes of Wrath' Be Just As Good With Different Personnel?

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"Seems like the government's got more interest in a dead man than a live one."

Tom Joad (Henry Fonda)

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I am something of an amateur historian. There are times when I wish time travel was possible because there are certain events I really would like to see. Why? Because I believe it would give me a better understanding of what happened and why — but I've studied enough history to know that there are many more periods in human history that I would not want to witness. Besides, I know myself well enough to know that I might not gain as much from the experience as I like to think I would.

One period that I am glad I did not witness was the Great Depression. My grandparents lived through the Great Depression; my parents were children in the '30s and learned to be frugal by necessity. I heard plenty of stories from them about how hard life was for most folks. It was hard enough to live through the Great Recession — and lots of folks don't think it is over yet.

How would they have fared during the Great Depression, which was far worse?

"The Grapes of Wrath," John Steinbeck's brilliant novel about the Depression and the Joad family forced from their home in Oklahoma trying to find a new life in California, was brought to the screen 75 years ago today.

Film critic Roger Ebert wrote that the novel was "arguably the most effective social document of the 1930s."

If a movie ever had every possible advantage, "The Grapes of Wrath" was that movie. Its director was the legendary John Ford. It starred Henry Fonda and a boatload of talented co–stars whose faces you will probably recognize even if you have trouble remembering their names.

Heck, it was a story by Steinbeck.

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And no story ever summed up the struggles people went through in the Depression as well as "The Grapes of Wrath." I have seen pictures that illustrated the Depression pretty well, but "The Grapes of Wrath" breathed life into such pictures.

And the movie brought the whole miserable experience of the Depression to life.

Look at the faces in "The Grapes of Wrath." You will see the same kind of vacant expression that those who have lived through great pain often have. It's the same expression that could be seen on the faces of the prisoners in the concentration camps when they were liberated by the Allies. Their tattered clothes, their rickety old truck that practically had to be pushed to California, their worn out belongings all spoke of people who had lived through great hardship.

Ford did a wonderful job of coaxing realistic performances out of his cast. In 1940, of course, the experience of the Depression was still fresh in everyone's minds. It might be more challenging to try to make a new version of the movie today.

Of course, I don't think a remake would be fortunate enough to have another Henry Fonda in the starring role or another John Ford behind the camera. Consequently, I cannot imagine a remake being anywhere near as good as the original.

But did "The Grapes of Wrath" depend entirely on the talents of its cast and director? It would still be a great story with another cast. The right casting could make all the difference; as long as no one tried to improve on Steinbeck, it could be almost as good as the original (I'm still not willing to concede that either Ford or Fonda could be improved upon — even if it was possible to improve on Steinbeck ... as if).

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Al (O. Z. Whitehead): Ain't you gonna look back, Ma? Give the ol' place a last look?

Ma (Jane Darwell): We're goin' to California, ain't we? All right, then, let's go to California.

Al: That don't sound like you, Ma. You never was like that before.

Ma: I never had my house pushed over before. Never had my family stuck out on the road. Never had to lose everything I had in life.

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And I can't think of any contemporary actress who could play Ma Joad as well as Jane Darwell did. Well, maybe Kathy Bates. That was an important role, you know, just as important as Henry Fonda's, although not as high profile. Still, she took home the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. The only other Oscar that went to "The Grapes of Wrath" was awarded to Ford for Best Director. Fonda was nominated for Best Actor but lost to Jimmy Stewart.

Clearly there was a lot of talent involved in the project.

Still, I keep coming back to the story, Steinbeck's story. If you put Ma Joad's words in some other actress' mouth, they would still be powerful words, powerful emotions set against the backdrop of the Dust Bowl. True, Darwell seemed perfect for the role of Ma Joad, but everyone else seemed perfect for their roles, too. Take the preacher, for example, Jim Casy, who was played by John Carradine. The Depression had altered his perception of things.

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Tom (Henry Fonda): Ain't you the preacher?

Casy (John Carradine): Used to be. Not no more. I lost the call. But, boy, I sure used to have it. Oh, I used to get an irrigation ditch so squirmin' full of repentant sinners I pretty near drowned half of 'em. Not no more. I lost the spirit. I got nothin' to preach about no more, that's all. I ain't so sure of things. I asked myself, what is this here call(ed) Holy Spirit? Maybe that's love. Why, I love everybody so much, I'm fit to bust sometimes. So maybe there ain't no sin, and there ain't no virtue. There's just what people does. Some things folks do is nice, and some ain't so nice. And that's all any man's got a right to say. 'Course I'll say a grace if somebody sets out the food, but my heart ain't in it.

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Perhaps nothing sums up the Depression–era struggles of people who didn't understand the events that swirled about them better than Tom Joad's discourse near the end — in his parting words to Ma.

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"I'll be all around in the dark. I'll be ever'where, wherever you can look. Wherever there's a fight so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever there's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there. I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad. I'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry an' they know supper's ready. An' when the people are eatin' the stuff they raise, and livin' in the houses they build, I'll be there, too."

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It just seems to me that you couldn't go wrong with a Steinbeck story.