Highway 66!

John Steinbeck published his realist novel ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ in 1939.

It depicts the plight of the families of tenant farmers and immigrants during the Great Depression.

It also reveals the darker side of the banking system and farming corporations.

‘The Grapes of Wrath’ became the bestselling book of 1939.

It also won the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

Later in 1962, Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize for ‘The Grapes of Wrath’.

But with the flowers came the thorns.

Both the leftists and rightists called Steinbeck a propagandist and socialist.

Banks and farming corporations accused Steinbeck of spreading lies.

The novel was banned and burned by landlords.

Steinbeck even received death threats for writing this novel.

Despite all the controversy surrounding it; Hollywood director John Ford decided to make a movie on this novel.

He signed the versatile actor Henry Fonda to play the lead role of Tom Joad.

The budget for making this movie was $800,000 and 20th Century-Fox was the distributor.

John Ford knew that there would be many objections if he announced that he is making a movie on the controversial ‘The Grapes of Wrath’.

There was a high chance of some organizations destroying the movie sets, interrupting the shooting, and harming the film crew.

John Ford did not want to put himself and his crew in danger, but he also wanted to make this movie at any cost.

So he came out with a creative solution.

He gave the movie a fake working title — “Highway 66’’.

And he picked this idea from the novel itself.

Highway 66 is the main migrant road in ‘The Grapes of Wrath’.

“66 is the path of a people in flight, refugees from dust and shrinking land, from the thunder of tractors and shrinking ownership, from the desert’s slow northward invasion, from the twisting winds that howl up out of Texas, from the floods that bring no richness to the land and steal what little richness is there. From all of these, the people are in flight, and they come into 66 from the tributary side roads, from the wagon tracks and the rutted country roads. 66 is the mother road, the road of flight.” — The Grapes of Wrath.

John Ford finished the shooting without any disturbance.

On 24th January 1940, the movie was released with the original title ‘The Grapes of Wrath’.

No doubt there were protests after the movie release.

Farming corporations called for a boycott of all 20th Century-Fox films.

But the protest did not have any major impact.

The movie was well received by the cine-goers at that time.

And today it is remembered as one of the greatest American films of all time.

“Highway 66” was the road of hope for John Ford to make this masterpiece.