When John Ford’s film adaptation of The Grapes of Wrath opened in January 1940, the Oklahoma State Legislature passed a resolution condemning it as a slur against the state. The Chamber of Commerce in Tulsa organized a boycott. Newspapers that had been friendly to Steinbeck’s novel shifted uncomfortably.
The problem, from Oklahoma’s perspective, was that the film — like the novel — showed Okies as desperate, poor, and pushed around by powerful interests. Oklahoma boosters felt this was unfair. The state had more going for it than Dust Bowl farms and foreclosures. They did not want their state identified with poverty and failure on cinema screens across the country.
What the boycotters missed, or chose to ignore, is that Ford’s film is not primarily about Oklahoma. It’s about the road. The first half of the film is essentially a Route 66 road movie — the Joad family loading up the truck, driving through Kansas and Oklahoma and New Mexico and Arizona, crossing the California desert, losing members of the family to death and exhaustion and departure along the way. The road is the film’s subject as much as the Joads are.
Henry Fonda played Tom Joad in a performance that won him his only Academy Award nomination until On Golden Pond. Jane Darwell won for Ma Joad. The film won Best Director and Best Film Editing.
It became one of the most influential American films ever made. Oklahoma eventually came around. The Joads’ journey became so iconic that Route 66 became, in part, synonymous with their story — a family in an overloaded truck, heading west, hoping the road leads somewhere better than where they started.
We are offering licences for ROUTE 66® Beer in specific territories. An invitation to others to become part of this story. To carry a piece of the road with them and to contribute to the story. We will share a percentage of royalties with Route 66 associations to keep the story alive.
The journey continues. This story is brought to you by ROUTE 66® BEER. Find us at ROUTE66BEER.COM
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