comment #1

berg says ...

are you saying that if John Ford helmed RED RIVER that Joanne Dru wouldn't pull the arrow out of her own shoulder - a cinematic original that paved the way for herzog and kinski to do the same thing in aguirre? ... or if Ford directed Monkey Business he would not have Cary break the fourth wall at the very beginning? or if Ford directed Rio Bravo, Rio Lobo, and Rio Whatever they wouldn't all be the same film?

comment #2

scooterzz says ...

wells -- so, did fox finally cave to your campaigning for this set or did you break down and give in?

comment #3

gruver1 says ...

Wells to Scooterz: I finally found the limited "Ford at Fox" set on Newbury Street after two days of hunting around. Yes, I broke down and paid for it myself. But the point isn't how I came to watch the DVD. The point is that while "The Grapes of Wrath" is a great film, John Ford blew this particular scene.

comment #4

scooterzz says ...

yeah, i got your point and actually liked the edit but i'm not sure i'd agree that he 'blew' the scene....i asked my question simply because i'm guessing that two more posts and you probably (and rightfully) could've gotten feldstein to send you a freebie.....

comment #5

Wrecktum says ...

While I love Ford, I think that his Grapes of Wrath is very overrated. It misses a sense of the bleak helplessness of much of the novel, and omits the transcendant final scene. Though I don't know how he could have pulled it off in Hayes Code Hollywood.

That said, Henry Fonda is the perfect, flawless Tom Joad. If only we had an actor with that kind of innate decency these days.

comment #6

Joe Leydon says ...

Wells: No offense, but John Ford was a genius. You're not. Ergo, any cut of any scene in any movie he ever made would be better than any attempt you might make to "improve" his handiwork. You're a guy who writes an entertaining website. He's an immortal. Sorry, but that's just the way it is.

comment #7

gruver1 says ...

Wells to Leydon: Nope...wrong. John Ford was John Ford, but he wasn't perfect and he wasn't God. And my cut of that scene is better than his. Period.

comment #8

Adonis says ...

Wells to the world: Suck my logic!

I will add this caveat on the idea of directors' freedom when it comes to edits.

I adore Michael Mann's films. I do not adore his director's cut versions. Last of the Mohicans is far better in the Theatrical releast then his much poorer cut, and the theatrical release of Miami Vice is better too (although by not nearly as much). I also feel that a better editor (plus better use of music), would have improved Ali.

So directors have their flaws...

comment #9

Joe Leydon says ...

Alas, no. You are incorrect, sir. You might want it to be true that you could edit a scene better than John Ford. Well, I might like to fuck Helen Mirren. But that won't happen. And yet, I suspect I will be having my second threesome with Helen Mirren and Judy Davis before you ever do anything better than John Ford. Sorry. That's just the way it is.

comment #10

Dirty Harry says ...

Judy Davis?

comment #11

cinefan says ...

I've never been a fan of Grapes of Wrath among Ford's films - too hokey and sentimental. I'm glad Rebecca won Best Picture that year and not Grapes - Philadelphia Story was a much better film that year too.

comment #12

berg says ...

Leydon - I thought your threesome was with Mirren and Oprah? wherever there's a fight so a hungry person can eat, I'll be there ...

comment #13

T. Holly says ...

I'll have a berg sandwich and a threesome for the honorable mention list to make it an even 20. Rescue Dawn, Beowulf and Lust, Caution.

comment #14

BurmaShave says ...

Whoa, Wells, you've gone too far. Your "version" is better than John Ford's masterpiece? God help us.

comment #15

JeffGP says ...

"Truck drivers!" is important for a number of reasons. For one, it adds a bit of much needed levity to a scene in what I consider the best "serious" movie ever made. Yes, it is sentimental, but in the weighty John Ford manner, adding texture to the waitress/cashier (in a movie that considers every person, every extra as a human character)... in that she's NOT swooning and being oversentimental at the actions of the truckers. A minute ago she was giving the Joads shit for wanting to get a cheaper loaf of bread. There's no time or consideration for sentiment in this cruel world, and if your problem with sentiment in that scene is a just a flippant, snarkily delivered line (or punchline), you obviously weren't paying attention to what is possibly the LEAST sentimental movie of its kind. It's hard, hard, hard and down and dirty. It portrays something that had not been seen on the big screen with such grit and filth and anger. Also, "truck drivers" is straight from the Steinbeck book. The actual quote: "Truck drivers," Mae said reverently, "an' after them shitheels."

Mae calls the Joads shitheels in the book and those thoughts are clearly portrayed on screen.

As someone who LOVES, LOVES, LOVES Howard Hawks, I find it beyond silly that you would even suggest Hawks could handle this material as well as Ford. Red River is possibly my favorite Western, but Grapes of Wrath was practically written for Ford, and to this day it remains, quite possibly the best novel-to-screen adaptations ever.

comment #16

rock powers says ...

watch out leydon, that judy davis can work a cock.

comment #17

jeffmcm says ...

Leydon, I know you hate me and all, but I have a hard time imagining that there isn't a single scene in any movie from the various directors that you love that you couldn't find a single thing to improve. Independently of what you think of John Ford or Grapes of Wrath. I mean, if I was Orson Welles, I wouldn't have allowed the matte of that bird at the end of Citizen Kane to be transparent. If I was Alfred Hitchcock I would have found a more interesting actor for Strangers on a Train than Farley Granger. And if I was Howard Hawks I would have worked a little harder to make Today We Live not quite so boring.

You have an absolutist streak that I find nonconducive to critical thought.

comment #18

bagelfilm says ...

January 2008 at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco - the Berlin & Beyond Film Festival with the best German films in 2007!

comment #19

Adonis says ...

I like my absolutist streaks cooked rare and served with a nice burgundy-reduction sauce.

comment #20

Nate West says ...

I believe that JW's edit ("What's it to you?") would have played nicely had the trucker saying it been Cary Grant.

comment #21

Geoff says ...

The transparent eyes on the bird in CITIZEN KANE were simply a mistake. Something you can allow considering all of the special effects and exacting detail that went into the making of that film.

Lots of people seem to have a problem with it when they see it. However, the shrieking of the bird is meant to be a jarring transition, which is perfect for the tone of Kane's final scene in the film. The look is odd, but I've never had a problem with it like most people.

comment #22

Yuval says ...

Joe, I talked to Stephen Hawking, who's a genious, and he said you're wrong ERGO! you're wrong. He also said you pick your nose, ERGO! and that you're 2 feet tall, ERGO! and ERGO! ERGO! ERGO!

comment #23

MarkVH says ...

I'm not familiar with the scene that Jeff's referring to, but I'll echo those here who think Grapes of Wrath is overrated. As for Ford's sentimentality, i kind of agree, but I also think that How Green Was My Valley is a significantly better film than Grapes and one of Ford's best, and it's probably even more egregious in this regard. But there I think the sentimentality fits with the child's perspective, whereas moments like the one Jeff's describing can seem really out of place in a harder and more uncompromising movie.

That and I could never stand John Steinbeck.

comment #24

Howlingman says ...

More a question than defense, but back in the day, I thought that in the old studio system, you shot the film as scripted, the footage was handed over to the studio and they edited it. The director had significantly less power then than now, and had the term "final cut" even been coined? Of course Ford was a sentimentalist, but I think Jeff may be giving him a little too much power in this scenario. 2007 rules for directors do not quite mesh with 1940's.

comment #25

Reedyb says ...

You can't take the sentimentality out of Ford without losing his sense of family that makes each character in his movies (whether they are caricatures or not)important.

comment #26

EricGilde says ...

Isn't it just a question of aesthetic? I feel like complaining about the sentimentality of Ford and what would have made it "better" is the flipside of my grandparents saying that Tarantino would be better without the profanity.




That said, no art is perfect or beyond scrutiny, and that's what makes it such a fantastic subject for discussion. I think if this post didn't have the whole "I did this better than Ford" angle, its argument would have retained a little more clarity. Because with those words it became about Wells one-upping Ford, not about one version being better than the other.

comment #27

George Prager says ...

The first time I watched National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, I laughed hard at an exchange between Chevy Chase and Randy Quaid. As I remembered it, Quaid is talking about his oldest son, who has recently left the family compound. Chase asks something like "Did he go to college, Eddie?" Quaid says "Nope...carnival." I saw it again recently and saw that Quaid just says "Carnival", not "Nope...carnival." I like my version better.

comment #28

Joe Leydon says ...

Reedyb: You are, for better or worse, absolutely right. And I say this as someone who winces at some of the broad comic relief in The Searchers -- but who, at the same time, wouldn't dare to presume to change a frame of the movie, because that comic relief, too, is part of Ford's world.

Geoff: Actually, it's an interesting question: Would great filmmakers go back and change anything in their movies if they had access to better special effects? Put aside whether you think George Lucas should have tampered with the original Star Wars trilogy. (Truthfully, I wish he hadn't.) If Hitchcock had managed to live long enough to use CGI, would he have wanted to go back and "revise" The Birds? Or would he have wanted to remake it (or reimgaine it) entirely, as he did with The Man Who Knew Too Much?

Yuval: Hawking may be a "genious," but you obviously are not.

Rock Powers: I always suspected that.