Released within a year of the novel, this potent Steinbeck adaptation sees a hard-working Oklahoma family through a bitter eviction, an arduous cross-country relocation and a desperate fight for survival near the crowded California coast. Along the lonesome desert highway, they encounter cruelty and kindness, hope and hardship, life and loss. Depression-era America was still a fresh reality at the time of filming, which makes its portrayal less a dramatized dash of hindsight and more of a living testament.

The book's broad themes, while tempered, remain intact. To be honest, Steinbeck's version can be downright ruthless in its many depictions of human greed and life beneath the bottom rung. That’s partly what I loved about it - the brutal, unflinching honesty of it all - but I can forgive an eighty-year-old film for averting its gaze from time to time, so long as the message rings true. In this case, the big-screen rework slices away most of the political messaging and concludes its story in a more optimistic place than the novel, but the plot, trimmed and compressed as necessary, still shines. It’s impossible to replicate the rich, deep characterization of a good Steinbeck novel in a two-hour movie, but this one does a fine job of distilling the important players to more digestible versions of themselves without losing their essence.

As adaptations of classic novels go, _The Grapes of Wrath_ is pretty darn good. Especially so considering its age, and the various competing influences that could’ve derailed its narrative. Compared to _East of Eden_, it’s night-and-day.