AN EXTRAORDINARY PIECE OF FILM HISTORY: RARE AUGUST 5, 1939 SHOOTING SCRIPT FOR THE OSCAR-WINNING FILM THE GRAPES OF WRATH, SIGNED BY OSCAR-WINNING DIRECTOR JOHN FORD, OSCAR-NOMINATED ACTOR HENRY FONDA AND 13 OTHER CAST MEMBERS, WITH CREW TECHNICAL ANNOTATIONS

(STEINBECK, John; FORD, John; FONDA, Henry et al.) JOHNSON, Nunnally. The Grapes of Wrath. Screenplay by Nunnally Johnson, from the novel by John Steinbeck. (Los Angeles): Twentieth Century-Fox Film, August 5, 1939. Quarto (8-1/2 by 11 inches), original printed yellow wrappers, mimeograph manuscript in typescript on rectos only, bound with brads as issued. Housed in a custom chemise and clamshell box.

Rare 1939 screenplay of the Academy Award-winning film adaptation of Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, an exceptional on-set crew copy signed by director John Ford and 14 leading cast members, including Henry Fonda, and annotated throughout with lighting and f-stop notations and other technical notes. This August 5, 1939 shooting script includes 19 blue leaves with revisions (dated September 8, 1939) and eight pages of shooting schedules (dated October 20, 1939). As issued, without the final scene and with the following note: “The balance of the script will be given to you while the picture is in production. We have not yet definitely decided on the exact ending of the story, but when it is decided, you will receive the additional pages.” Five leaves with the ending (scenes 259 to 265), dated November 1, 1939, are supplied in facsimile. An exceptional signed association copy in original studio wrappers.

Nunnally Johnson’s Oscar-nominated screenplay of Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath was written only months after the novel’s publication. Nunnally’s July 13, 1939 first draft was followed by a July 29th second draft and this August 5, 1939 “revised temporary” shooting script. This copy is boldly signed in pencil by the film’s Academy Award-winning director John Ford on the initial half sheet. Fourteen leading cast members have signed the title page and have added their character names beneath their signatures. Chief among these is Henry Fonda (“Tom”), who earned an Oscar nomination for his role, and Jane Darwell (“Ma Joad”), who won an Oscar for her role. Other actor signatures include: John Carradine, “(Casey)”; Charley Grapewin, “Grand Pappy” [i.e. Grandpa]; Dorris Bowdon, “Rosasham”; Russell Simpson, “Pa Joad”; O.Z. Whitehead, “Al Joad”; John Qualen, “Muley”; Eddie Quillan, “Connie Rivers”; Zeffie Tilbury, “Grandma” Pr— - [unclear] the Land for Victory”; Frank Sully, “Noah”; Frank Darien, “Uncle John”; Darryl Hickman, “Winfield”; and Shirley Mills, “Ruthie” (several character names in an unidentified hand). There are technical notes in an unidentified crew member’s hand throughout, including penciled lines, “x” marks, and many annotations identifying lighting decisions and lens f-stops for a number of scenes, as well as editing choices and notations, with scene completion marks.

Legendary producer Darryl Zanuck bought the film rights to Steinbeck’s novel three months after publication. Steinbeck was initially very skeptical of Hollywood’s ability to film his novel honestly. “At a meeting prior to production, Steinbeck told Zanuck that he was going to put the $75,000 paid for the rights to the novel into escrow, and that if the movie was watered down or its perspective changed, he would use the money to sue him” (Benson, 409). Steinbeck pointedly “asked Zanuck if he believed what the book was saying about the exploitation of migrant workers. Zanuck told Steinbeck that he had hired a detective firm to investigate the charges levied by the novel and found that ‘the conditions are much worse than you reported” (Nez, in McBride, Searching for John Ford, 310). Steinbeck and screenwriter Nunnally Johnson, however, “got along beautifully… Johnson was one of several Hollywood people whom Steinbeck came to trust implicitly. He was a great screenwriter and was completely honorable, and knowing this, Steinbeck took the right course when he told him, in effect… I’ve already made my statement. Now it’s up to you to make yours.’ This gave Johnson the kind of freedom he needed” (Benson, 409-10).

“After Johnson talked to Steinbeck, he did not hesitate to ‘switch things around, but I had to preserve the things I thought were pertinent and important. I did what I thought was most effective for the medium.” Johnson couldn’t use the book’s ending in the film, and he made “a major change in the overall structure… Johnson felt that he could not leave the Joads at the government camp at the very end of the film. They would have to be moving on, because, just as it would not have been ‘dramatically right’ to leave the audience on a completely depressing note, it would also have been wrong to leave them on a completely positive note. Johnson had to come up with a closing scene that would capture the spirit of the picture. During his readings of the novel, Johnson had been struck by a line that Ma Joad spoke in chapter twenty, a little more than half-way through the book: ‘We're the people— we go on.’ Johnson said, ‘I knew I was going to use that at the end because that's all you could do. Once you found that line, you said, ‘Nothing can top this. Nothing is more beautifully understated than that kind of noble fact.’ When Johnson met with Steinbeck in New York before writing the script, he raised the possibility of using those lines as the ending. Steinbeck approved and said he had considered ending the book on those lines. Johnson did more than just use those lines. He built up an entire scene to go with them, using both material from the book and material he wrote himself to make it work dramatically… The final scene of the script has been controversial in another way. In Mel Gussow's biography of Darryl F. Zanuck, Don't Say Yes until I Finish Talking, Gussow claims that Zanuck wrote the final scene of the screenplay… [the information] appears to have come from Zanuck himself. What Zanuck is probably remembering is the original controversy over which ending was to be used. Johnson has said that he knew from before starting the script that he was going to use Ma's speech at the end, and he wrote the ending as it now stands… as part of his original script. In Johnson's mind, there was no doubt that that scene was to be the final one in the film. In the minds of Zanuck and John Ford, there was some question. In the copy of the script used by the cinematographer of the picture, Gregg Toland, the final scene does not appear. Instead, the scene before it ends and is followed by a note: ‘The ending of the picture has not been decided upon and you will be given it when the film is in production” (Stempel, Screenwriter Nunnally Johnson, pp. 81-84). “Zanuck and Johnson both took the responsibility for the decision to end the film instead with Ma Joad’s uplifting speech, lifted from a spot two-thirds into the book… This scene appeared in the shooting script as an addendum dated November 1, 1939 when John Ford was still involved in principal photography” (Nez, 313).

No other Hollywood film of the era on the Great Depression matches “the feeling of raw authenticity John Ford achieved… After seeing the film in December 1939, Steinbeck expressed relief to his agent: ‘Zanuck has more than kept his word. He has a hard, straight picture in which the actors are submerged to completely that it looks and feels like a documentary film and certainly it has a hard, truthful ring. No punches are pulled— in fact, with descriptive matter removed, it is a harsher than the book, by far. It seems unbelievable but it is true.’ Steinbeck’s opinion remained constant over the years. He told Henry Fonda in 1958 that he had watched a 16mm print of the film that ‘Elia Kazan had stolen from Twentieth Century-Fox. It’s a wonderful picture, just as good as it ever was. It doesn’t look dated” (Nez, 314).

The masterful direction of John Ford is matched by the innovative brilliance of cinematographer, Gregg Toland. “Ford and Toland studied and imitated the work of such depression-era still photographers as Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, Margaret Bourke-White and Ben Shan… Ford marveled that Toland ‘did a great job of photography— absolutely nothing but nothing to photograph, not one beautiful thing in there— just sheer good photography… The same spare eloquence resonates through most of the performances. Fonda had to agree to an onerous seven-year contract with Fox to play Tom Joad… Grapes of Wrath was a success at the box office (grossing $1.1 million, the best performance of any Fox film that year). It also received rapturous critical acclaim. In his oft-quoted New York Times review, Frank S. Nugent wrote, ‘In the vast library where the celluloid literature of the screen is stored there is one small, uncrowded shelf devoted to the cinema’s masterworks… To that shelf of screen classics, Twentieth Century-Fox yesterday added its version of John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath… just about as good as any picture has the right to be” (Nez, 313-16). The film was nominated for seven Oscars— best picture, director, screenplay, film editing, sound recording, actor, and supporting actress— but only Ford and Darwell won. Front wrapper with: “Revised Temporary” in print at the upper edge; lower edge with printed studio logo and “Property of Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation, Return to Stenographic Department,” as well as inkstamped “82” at the lower right corner. Accompanied by a copy of John Ford: Interviews, edited by Gerald Peary.

Text generally fresh with light occasional edge-wear, minor rubbing to wrappers. Near-fine condition.