2023.04.28

又一部約翰·韋恩主演的電影，但是韋恩在這部電影里主演卻不出彩，像個打醬油的，反而是他身邊的幾個“歪瓜裂棗”倒是神采奕奕，光鮮奪目。據(jù)說原劇本是在第一次世界大戰(zhàn)時撰寫的，這部電影把它放在了二戰(zhàn)初期的1940年，且同年拍攝上映，可謂沒有時間距離感。

1940年，停泊在西印度群島的英國船只SS格倫凱林號貨輪準(zhǔn)備去美國裝載軍火運到英國去，為了安撫船員，船長允許當(dāng)?shù)氐墓媚飩兩洗瑏碣u水果，結(jié)果她們私帶了很多朗姆酒，船員們喝多了酒后興奮起來，尋歡作樂，唱歌跳舞，接著打起群架來，還把一個船員捅傷，真是敬酒不吃吃罰酒，氣的船長取消了這個特許活動。

船員們得知船上裝載了大量的TNT炸藥后頓時炸了鍋，這可是當(dāng)時最強悍的烈性炸藥，這時船長召集大家開會，許諾船到倫敦后加薪25%，大家頓時一點意見都沒有了，真的是人為財死，鳥為食亡。不過還是有個叫史密斯的船員試圖逃跑，結(jié)果沒有逃出碼頭就被岸上的警察抓住送了回來。格倫凱林號遭遇大風(fēng)暴，亞克負(fù)了重傷，彌留之際流露出對生命的渴望，但是在大海中航行的船上，缺醫(yī)少藥，負(fù)傷就意味著死亡，最后亞克還是不治身亡，船長和全體船員按照慣例海葬了他。

一直不合群的史密斯引起了大家的猜測，尤其是打開窗戶偷偷把一個酒瓶子扔海里被人發(fā)現(xiàn)，懷疑他是德國間諜在給德國潛艇發(fā)信號，眾人把他綁了起來，打開他那個神秘的黑盒子，里面是一疊信，德里斯科讀了兩封信就再也讀不下去了，這是一個叫伊麗莎白的妻子寫給丈夫的信，這個叫湯姆的丈夫有三個孩子和一個幸福的家，因丟了官職而離家出走，妻子的信中充滿悲傷和哀愁，更期待他活著歸來。但是史密斯終于沒能活著回家，他死于德國飛機的掃射，他妻子和兩個孩子來到碼頭接他，結(jié)果悲傷的離開。

歐里離開家在海上漂泊了十年，每次船靠岸他都和大多數(shù)船員一樣在酒吧里喝的酩酊大醉，直到把辛辛苦苦賺來的錢花光，再次上船賺辛苦錢，這次他拿到兩年的工錢后決定上岸后一滴酒不沾，直接回家投資買個農(nóng)場安頓下來。俗話說不怕賊偷就怕賊惦記，終于到了英國上岸的歐里左防右放，還是沒防住，在一個叫喬的酒吧被劫，遭人算計，差點被人擄走，幸虧兄弟們出手相救，才得以平安回家，但是德里斯克卻不幸代他被那艘船員們戲稱惡魔船的“阿米達(dá)”號擄走，最終在海上被德國潛艇的魚雷擊沉。

見多識廣的格倫凱林號船長料事如神，貨輪即將起航時候，花光了錢的船員們一個個的又灰溜溜的回到了船上，這就是大多數(shù)船員們的宿命，走不出去的怪圈，一輩子的悲慘命運。正像片尾所述“像歐里一樣的人來來回回，像德里斯科一樣的人生生死死，像亞克和史密斯一樣的人留下了回憶”。

In 1940, there are two John Ford pictures,THE GRAPES OF WRATH and THE LONG VOYAGE HOME, entering the Oscar race (with 7 and 6 nominations respectively including BEST PICTURE), the former won him the second of his unsurpassable record of 4 wins in BEST DIRECTOR category.

As of today, THE GRAPES OF WRATH has retained its renown as an irrefutable American classic, sourced from Nobel winner John Steinbeck’s seminal novel censuring the capitalistic exploitation to the have-nots, viz. the Depression-era displaced Oklahoman sharecroppers who are forced to leave their dust-ridden native lands to seek sustenance in the California, the land of honey and milk.

Their exodus is encapsulated by the Joads family, starting as a family of 12, they trundle a jalopy through various migrant camps, buffeted by hardship, maltreatment and bereavements. When they finally fetches up in a clean camp conspicuously organized by the ministry of agriculture, they cannot credit their luck. Ford and his scribe Nunnally Johnson dull the edge of Steinbeck’s stark depiction with a more sanguine prospect, a self-policing grassroots community can outfox the corrupted authority and downplay the “red scare” that is very prominent in the novel (anyone who dares to demand fair wage is gauged as a “red”?).

Viewed as a cracking poverty porn, THE GRAPES OF WRATH possesses that reassuring tact of resisting overplaying the story’s mawkish sentimentality, if your highest tolerance is famished kids begging for food, you’re in for an easy ride. Visually and sonically, it shows up Ford’s directorial sway and cinematographer Gregg Toland’s striking chiaroscuro ambience in the highest order, the murkiness of inequity revs up against the howling wind and shadow-scape.

Henry Fonda received his first Oscar nomination for his devoted portrayal of Tom Joad, the ex-con whose propensity for violence makes him an easy mark, and Fonda utilizes his four-squareness to max out great fortitude and curdled indignation, finally, his extraordinary application culminates in the crescendo where he speechifies Steinbeck’s hyperbolic manifesto of social justice with flying colors, the delivery’s virtuousness is so sweeping that even the most cynical mind could only be cowed by its eloquence and grandeur. By the same token, Jane Darwell, who plays the matronly Ma Joad, won an Oscar for her stirring, full-blown oratory that is often esteemed as the highest achievement of theatrics, her “we are the people” valediction is an irrefragable mood-boosting coda that hits the bull’s-eye.

But one must contend, a singularly exceptional John Carradine is left unsung as the lapsed preacher Jim Casy, a messianic figure who has to be sacrificed to illuminate the multitude, Carradine’s cragginess fascinatingly jars with Casy’s angelic innocuousness and selfless sagacity, he might have lost his faith, but the aureola of benediction never deserts him.

THE LONG VOYAGE HOME, whose soundstage artificiality does vitiate the plausibility of an open-sea voyage, concatenates four Eugene O’Neal’s seafaring plays into one feature by Dudley Nichols, and Toland’s groundbreaking prestidigitation of coaxing light and shade again is the main star here, creating a pre-film noir atmosphere of mist, ambiguity and desolation, often on a dime.

The story is a tetralogy roughly consisted of a roisterous comedy of brawl and exotic girls, a treacherous waterborne adventurer, a WWII paranoia thriller and a blokeish escapade onshore, as a result its prevailing tone fails to cohere, the film feels haphazard, episodic, most of its time unengaged. The comical part is a mess, Ford is ill at ease with frivolity, the studio-bound finitude (a waterlogged deck mostly) doesn’t broaden his imagination of nature’s elemental ferocity and all the commotion around a hidden German spy among the crew leans to preposterousness.

Luckily, at audience’s pleasure, the ship crew onboard makes do what is at their disposal: Barry Fitzgerald is a vividly fussy steward named Cocky, who looks so far from a sea dog, you might expect him to take a pratfall just by entering the forecastle; John Qualen as Axel, has the most maddening foreign accent but you may forgive him for his earnest (he also shines in a cameo in THE GRAPES OF WRATH, you can see his range); Ian Hunter is the loner harboring a secret disgrace, and Ward Bond is generously allotted a lengthy part when his Yank is in extremis.

A young Wayne unconvincingly plays a Swede named Olsen, looks wet behind the ears and only too naive to fall prey to skulduggery on the land (Natwick, a celluloid debutante, has a small but striking appearance as a reluctant decoy), he is humbled by a more world-savvy Driscoll (Mitchell), the leader of the gang, Mitchell excellently plays him with gusto and facility. But the film is a downer entombed in nostalgia and homesick (accentuated by Richard Hageman’s forlorn score) ever since the frothy gaiety is scuppered in the beginning, not least for the unexpected ending. Reckoned as the first Ford picture that deals with the ongoing WWII (though obliquely), THE LONG VOVAGE HOME’s pathos is rather different from the populist affirmation distilled from THE GRAPES OF WRATH, whereas the latter in a towering landmark in Ford’s estimable filmography, the former could only settle for a minor grade in juxtaposition.

referential entries: Ford’s HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY (1941, 7.3/10); THE QUIET MAN (1952, 7.4/10); René Clément’s THE DAMNED (1947, 7.3/10).

Title: The Grapes of Wrath

Year: 1940

Country: USA

Language: English

Genre: Drama

Director: John Ford

Screenwriter: Nunnally Johnson

based on the novel by John Steinbeck

Music: Alfred Newman

Cinematography: Gregg Toland

Editing: Robert L. Simpson

Cast:

Henry Fonda

Jane Darwell

John Carradine

Dorris Bowdon

Russell Simpson

Charley Grapewin

Zeffie Tilbury

O.Z. Whitehead

Eddie Quillan

Frank Sully

Darryl Hickman

Shirley Mills

Frank Darien

John Qualan

Grant Mitchell

Ward Bond

Roger Imhof

Rating: 8.2/10

Title: The Long Voyage Home

Year: 1940

Country: USA

Language: English, Spanish

Genre: Drama, War

Director: John Ford

Screenwriter: Dudley Nichols

based on four plays by Eugene O’Neal

Music: Richard Hageman

Cinematography: Gregg Toland

Editing: Sherman Todd

Cast:

John Wayne

Thomas Mitchell

Barry Fitzgerald

Ian Hunter

John Qualen

Wilfrid Lawson

Ward Bond

Mildred Natwick

Arthur Shields

Joe Sawyer

Douglas Walton

Carmen Morales

Rafaela Ottiano

Constantine Romanoff

Lee Shumway

Billy Bevan

Jack Pennock

Rating: 7.0/10