归途路迢迢

2023.04.28

又一部约翰·韦恩主演的电影，但是韦恩在这部电影里主演却不出彩，像个打酱油的，反而是他身边的几个“歪瓜裂枣”倒是神采奕奕，光鲜夺目。据说原剧本是在第一次世界大战时撰写的，这部电影把它放在了二战初期的1940年，且同年拍摄上映，可谓没有时间距离感。

1940年，停泊在西印度群岛的英国船只SS格伦凯林号货轮准备去美国装载军火运到英国去，为了安抚船员，船长允许当地的姑娘们上船来卖水果，结果她们私带了很多朗姆酒，船员们喝多了酒后兴奋起来，寻欢作乐，唱歌跳舞，接着打起群架来，还把一个船员捅伤，真是敬酒不吃吃罚酒，气的船长取消了这个特许活动。

船员们得知船上装载了大量的TNT炸药后顿时炸了锅，这可是当时最强悍的烈性炸药，这时船长召集大家开会，许诺船到伦敦后加薪25%，大家顿时一点意见都没有了，真的是人为财死，鸟为食亡。不过还是有个叫史密斯的船员试图逃跑，结果没有逃出码头就被岸上的警察抓住送了回来。格伦凯林号遭遇大风暴，亚克负了重伤，弥留之际流露出对生命的渴望，但是在大海中航行的船上，缺医少药，负伤就意味着死亡，最后亚克还是不治身亡，船长和全体船员按照惯例海葬了他。

一直不合群的史密斯引起了大家的猜测，尤其是打开窗户偷偷把一个酒瓶子扔海里被人发现，怀疑他是德国间谍在给德国潜艇发信号，众人把他绑了起来，打开他那个神秘的黑盒子，里面是一叠信，德里斯科读了两封信就再也读不下去了，这是一个叫伊丽莎白的妻子写给丈夫的信，这个叫汤姆的丈夫有三个孩子和一个幸福的家，因丢了官职而离家出走，妻子的信中充满悲伤和哀愁，更期待他活着归来。但是史密斯终于没能活着回家，他死于德国飞机的扫射，他妻子和两个孩子来到码头接他，结果悲伤的离开。

欧里离开家在海上漂泊了十年，每次船靠岸他都和大多数船员一样在酒吧里喝的酩酊大醉，直到把辛辛苦苦赚来的钱花光，再次上船赚辛苦钱，这次他拿到两年的工钱后决定上岸后一滴酒不沾，直接回家投资买个农场安顿下来。俗话说不怕贼偷就怕贼惦记，终于到了英国上岸的欧里左防右放，还是没防住，在一个叫乔的酒吧被劫，遭人算计，差点被人掳走，幸亏兄弟们出手相救，才得以平安回家，但是德里斯克却不幸代他被那艘船员们戏称恶魔船的“阿米达”号掳走，最终在海上被德国潜艇的鱼雷击沉。

见多识广的格伦凯林号船长料事如神，货轮即将起航时候，花光了钱的船员们一个个的又灰溜溜的回到了船上，这就是大多数船员们的宿命，走不出去的怪圈，一辈子的悲惨命运。正像片尾所述“像欧里一样的人来来回回，像德里斯科一样的人生生死死，像亚克和史密斯一样的人留下了回忆”。

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