Never Saw This Film Until Last Night

Hey folks,

John Steinbeck has written several novels of which I have long been very passionate. These would include Of Mice And Men, Grapes Of Wrath, and East of Eden. Most of his other writings never interested me like the three I have mentioned. The Red Pony was one of his works I never really liked very much, and I never had the urge to see any of the films based on it.

Having said that, I saw this film version from 1973 was being shown, and since I liked the actors featured, I thought I would record it and take a look. It has been a long time since I read the book, but the film did seem to follow the book's episodic character in breaking the film into what might be called four or five acts. I understand Steinbeck published this short novel based on four or five related short stories which were published in magazines. I have no idea why the filmmaker would feel compelled to follow the episodic nature of the original novel; I would think it would have flowed quite well without the introduction of the episodic acts.

Having said all that about the book and the film, I have to say that I did enjoy watching the film a lot more than I recall reading the book. The film is certainly not fast paced and is downright slow in some places. It is not a film for those who grew up watching car chase action films. It does, however, feature a pretty interesting fight scene with Henry Fonda that takes place in a saloon that has a dirt floor.

Some of the characters are changed from the book, but that was not all that bad for me. The ending is also a bit more happy than the ending provided by Steinbeck, and I suspect he might not have cared for it. It has always seemed to me that Steinbeck wrote a lot of his material with the intention of it being able to be easily used in other forms such as magazines, stage plays, and screenplays. Of Mice And Men is a great example of this. You can take the book as written and easily stage a play or make a screenplay with the existing dialogue.

I doubt I will ever watch this film again, but I did enjoy watching it once. As I noted earlier, there are a bunch of actors in it that I like, and it was nice to see them once again. Do not watch this, however, if you are inclined toward the modern action stuff. You really need to get a snack and a drink and get comfortable and expect to sit and relax while you watch a story unfold kind of slowly.

Best wishes,
Dave Wile