The Great Stars of yesterday and today in a season of their most memorable films
[Starring] Henry Fonda
with Jane Darwell, John Carradine, Charles Grapewin, Dorris Bowdon
Based on the best-selling novel by John Steinbeck

Young Tom Joad returns to his native Oklahoma after four years in jail and is reunited with his family just as they are about to set out on a heartbreaking trek to California in search of work.
Roger Manvell described this film as 'the most courageous social film Hollywood has ever produced,' and certainly it is one of the cinema's greatest achievements, a work which figures among most critics' lists of 'Top Ten' films of all time.

John Steinbeck's novel is founded on hard fact. But the humour, warmth, and depth of feeling with which John Ford has translated the book into film terms has added a further dimension of intense and deeply moving poetry to the story. Ford was awarded an Oscar for his direction of the picture, and Jane Darwell who plays Ma Joad, and who gives one of the screen's most beautiful and moving performances, also won an Academy Award as the Best Supporting Actress. Henry Fonda, the fine actor who gave some of his best performances under Ford's direction, is ideally cast as Tom Joad.

John Ford has always favoured simple background music for his films-those, such as The Informer, which used heavy orchestrations have usually been the least successful. The score of The Grapes of Wrath refers throughout to American folk music, in particular Red River Valley' which young Tom sings gently to his mother on the eve of his departure.