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Scripted by Nunnally Johnson from John Steinbeck’s Pultizer Prize-winning 1939 novel, John Ford’s The Grapes Of Wrath premieres in New York. Set during the Great Depression, Henry Fonda stars as the just-paroled Tom Joad who joins his dirt-poor, bank-evicted Oklahoma family on a desperate journey to seek a better life in far-off California. A stark, devastating portrait of courage and survival in the face of acute hardship and heartbreak, eloquently grounded in the haunting, achingly moving performances of a cast that includes Linda Darwell (who wins the Best Actress Academy Award for her role as Ma Joad), John Carradine, Charley Grapewin, Russell Simpson and Frank Sully. Ford wins his second Oscar for Best Director. An American classic.
