The Grapes of Wrath

- When'll you be back, Roy? - Oh, in a couple of weeks.

Don't do nothing you wouldn't want me to hear about.

- Well, so long. - So long.

How about a lift, mister?

- Can't you see that sticker? - Sure, I see it.

But a good guy don't pay no attention...

...to what some heel makes him stick on his truck.

Well, scrunch down on the running board till we get around the bend.

- Going far? - No, just a couple of miles.

I'd have walked her if my dogs wasn't pooped out.

- Looking for a job? - No. My old man's got a place.

Forty acres. He's a sharecropper, but we've been there a long while.

Oh.

- Been doing a job? - Yeah.

I seen your hands. You been swinging a pick or a sledge.

That's what makes them shiny. I notice little things like that all the time.

Got a trade?

- Why don't you get at it, buddy? - Get at what?

You know. You been going over me since I got in. Why don't you ask where I've been?

I don't stick my nose in nobody's business. I stay in my own yard.

That big nose of yours been going over me like a sheep in a vegetable patch.

Well, I ain't keeping it a secret. I've been in the penitentiary. Been there four years.

- Anything else? - You ain't gotta get sore.

- Ask me anything. - I didn't mean nothing.

Me neither. I'm just trying to get along without shoving anybody, that's all.

See that road ahead? That's where I get out.

You're about to bust a gut to know what I done, ain't you?

Well, I ain't a guy to let you down.

Homicide.

He's my savior

My savior

My savior now

- Howdy, friend. - Howdy.

Say...

...ain't you young Tom Joad, old Tom's boy?

Yeah. I'm on my way home now.

Well, I do declare.

I baptized you, son.

Ain't you the preacher?

Used to be.

Not no more.

I lost the call.

But, boy, I sure used to have it.

I used to get an irrigation ditch so full of repented sinners...

...I'd pretty near drown half of them.

But not no more.

I lost the spirit.

I got nothing to preach about no more, that's all.

I ain't so sure of things.

I remember you preaching a sermon...

...walking around on your hands, shouting your head off.

Yeah, I remember.

Went pretty good that way.

But that was nothing.

I preached a whole sermon once straddling the ridge pole of a barn.

Like this:

- Did you see that one? - No.

You didn't?

Well, it's all gone anyway.

You should have got yourself a wife.

Why, at my meetings, I used to get the girls glory-shouting till they about passed out.

Then I'd go to comfort them.

I'd always end up by loving them.

I'd feel bad and pray and pray, but it didn't do no good.

Next time, do it again.

I figured I just wasn't worth saving.

Yeah, Pa always says you was never cut out for no preacher.

I never let one get by me if I could catch her. Have a snort?

But you wasn't a preacher. A girl was just a girl to you.

To me, they's holy vessels.

I was saving their souls.

I asked myself, what is this here called Holy Spirit?

Maybe that's love.

Why, I love everybody so much I'm fit to burst sometimes.

So maybe there ain't no sin and there ain't no virtue.

It's just what people does.

Some things folks do is nice and some ain't so nice...

...and that's all any man's got a right to say.

Of course, I'll say a grace if somebody sets out the food...

...but my heart ain't in it.

- Nice drinking liquor. - Ought to be.

That's factory liquor. Cost me a buck.

- You been out traveling around? - Ain't you heard? It's been in the papers.

- No, I never. What? - I've been in the penitentiary for four years.

Excuse me for asking.

I don't mind no more. I'd do what I done again.

Killed a guy in a dance hall.

We was drunk. He got a knife in me and I laid him out with a shovel.

- Knocked his head plumb to squash. - You ain't ashamed?

No. He had a knife in me. That's why they only gave me seven years.

I got out in four. Parole.

- Ain't seen your folks since? - No, but I aim to before sundown...

...and I'm getting excited about it too.

- Which way are you going? - Oh, it don't matter.

Ever since I lost the spirit, looks like I'd just as soon go one way as the other.

I'll go your way.

Maybe Ma will have pork for supper.

I ain't had pork but four times in four years. Every Christmas.

I'll be glad to see your pa.

Ha, ha. Last time I seen him was at a baptizing.

He had one of the biggest doses of the Holy Spirit I ever seen.

Got to jumping over bushes. Howling like a dog-wolf at moon-time.

Finally, he picks himself out a bush big as a piano...

...and he lets out a squawk and takes a run at that bush.

Well, he cleared her.

But he bust his leg snap in two doing it. Ha.

There was a traveling dentist and he set her and I gave her a praying over, but...

...there wasn't no more Holy Spirit left in your pa after that.

- Listen. That wind's fixing to do something. - Sure it is.

Always is this time of year.

Ma?

Pa?

Ma?

Ain't nobody here.

- Something's happened. - You got a match?

They're all gone or dead.

- They never wrote you nothing? - No. They wasn't people to write.

It's Ma's. She had them for years.

Used to be mine. I gave it to Grandpa when I went away.

You reckon they're dead?

I never heard nothing about it.

Tommy?

Muley.

- Where's my folks, Muley? - Why, they gone.

I know they're gone, but where are they gone?

It's Muley Graves. You remember the preacher, don't you?

- I ain't no preacher anymore. - All right. You remember the man?

- Glad to see you again. - Now, where are my folks?

They gone. They gone to your Uncle John's. The whole crowd of them. Two weeks ago.

But they can't stay there, because John's got his notice to get off.

What happened? How come they gotta get off?

We lived here 50 years, same place.

Everybody's gotta get off. Everybody's leaving. Going out to California.

Your folks, my folks, everybody's folks.

Everybody except me. I ain't getting off.

- Who done it? - Listen.

That's some of what done it. The dusters. They started it, anyways.

Blowing like this year after year.

Blowing the land away. Blowing the crops away.

Blowing us away now.

Are you crazy?

Some say I am. You wanna hear how it happened?

That's what I'm asking you, ain't it?

Well, the way it happens....

The way it happened to me....

A man come one day....

After what them dusters done to the land, the tenant system don't work no more.

They don't even break even, much less show profit.

One man and a tractor can handle 12 or 14 of these places.

You just pay him a wage and take all the crop.

Yeah, but we couldn't do on any less than what our share is now.

The children ain't getting enough to eat as it is. And they're so ragged...

...we'd be ashamed if everybody else's children wasn't the same way.

I can't help that. I got my orders. They told me to tell you to get off.

- That's what I'm telling you. - You mean get off my own land?

- Don't go to blaming me. It ain't my fault. - Whose fault is it?

You know who owns the land. Shawnee Land and Cattle Company.

- Who's Shawnee Land and Cattle Company? - It ain't nobody. It's a company.

They got a president, ain't they? They got somebody who knows what a shotgun's for!

Oh, son, it ain't his fault because the bank tells him what to do.

- All right. Where's the bank? - Tulsa. What's the use of picking on him?

He ain't nothing but the manager. He's half crazy trying to keep up with his orders.

- Then who do we shoot? - Brother, I don't know.

If I did, I'd tell you. I just don't know who's to blame.

I'm right here to tell you, mister:

There ain't nobody gonna push me off my land!

My grandpa took up this land 70 years ago!

My pa was born here. We was all born on it!

And some of us was killed on it!

And some of us died on it.

That's what makes it our'n.

Being born on it...

...and working on it...

...and dying. Dying on it!

And not no piece of paper with writing on it.

Well, what happened?

They come. They come and pushed me off.

- They come with the cats. - The what?

The cats, the caterpillar tractors.

And for every one of them...

...there was 10, 15 families thrown right out of their homes.

A hundred folks. And no place to live but on the road.

The Rances, the Peterses, the Perrys, the Joadses.

One right after the other, they got thrown out.

Half the folks you and me know thrown right out into the road.

The one that got me come, oh, about a month ago.

Go on back!

Go on back! I'm warning you, go on back!

You come any closer and I'm gonna blow you right out of that cat!

I told you!

Why, you're Joe Davis' boy.

I don't like for nobody to draw a bead on me.

Then what are you doing this for? Against your own people.

Three dollars a day, that's what I'm doing it for.

I got two little kids at home. My wife, my wife's mother. Them folks gotta eat.

First and only, I think about my folks. What happens to others is their own lookout.

Yeah, but you don't understand, son. This is my land!

Used to be your land. It's the company's now.

Have it your own way, son. But just as sure as you touch my house with that cat...

...I'm gonna blow you plumb to kingdom come!