Posted seven years ago (3.25.12): “I still have problems with the Grapes of Wrath diner scene, which, as mentioned a couple of times, is a near-perfect thing until the very end when John Ford‘s sentimentality ruins it. If he’d only ended the scene with the trucker telling the waitress, ‘What’s it to ya?’
“This has always been Ford’s problem, and why his films are best appreciated in limited doses. Not to mention his tendency to prod his supporting actors into over-acting and doing the ‘tedious eccentricity’ thing — Ford’s ultimate Achilles heel. The overacting of that waitress is especially painful.”
