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John Steinbeck and His Films

MICHAEL BURROWS

I
N THE LATE 1930S, Steinbeck became disillusioned with the novel as a
creative force, turning his thoughts to film as a means of communication.
Influenced by Pare Lorentz (particularly by The Fight for Life, on which he
had worked), Steinbeck planned to emulate the documentary film-maker: in
this regard 1941’s The Forgotten Village is evidence of some success.
However, apart from films others made of his works, Steinbeck stands
alone in having made several excursions into the realm of producing original
screenplays. This was no dilettantism, for he believed in the influential power
of both cinema and television. In Steinbeck and Film, Millichap observes
that in The Pearl, “as in his best fiction of the 1930s Steinbeck fuses his
universal allegory with filmic realism. Perhaps planning ahead for a screen-
play, Steinbeck’s prose in the novel often takes a cinematic point of view”
(Millichap 97). In 1939, Steinbeck wrote to his former college roommate,
Carlton Sheffield: “Hollywood is breaking up; there’ll be a new set-up before
long and decent pictures can be made—and I want to learn the technique.”
Ultimately, Steinbeck confided in Gore Vidal: “Television spelled the end of
the novel.” A chronological survey of all of the pieces shows the extent of
Steinbeck’s involvement in film—little known and often misunderstood, but
far from being an inconsiderable activity.
Both 1939’s Of Mice and Men and the following year’s The Grapes of
Wrath were adapted for the screen so expertly that they have become film
classics, just as the texts have remained literary monuments. Yet for the eager
writer to have two such signal successes as inaugural cinematic conversions
was to prove a mixed blessing, for none of the successive films was equal
in excellence to these original productions. It is coincidental that Director
Lewis Milestone propelled both All Quiet on the Western Front and Of Mice
and Men to iconic status. His involvement with the latter arose fortuitously.
A disagreement over the trend of Milestone’s work on Road Show caused
producer Hal Roach to dismiss him as its director. Milestone, however, sued
successfully and invested the settlement award in a filming of Of Mice and Men,
with himself as director, totally unburdened by the dictates of his producer.
A prologue followed by artistic credits is commonplace today, and this
artistic and effective innovation was probably introduced in this 1939 film. It


C 2008 The Martha Heasley Cox Center for Steinbeck Studies/ Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

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was released in sepia color which enhanced the image, capturing the rather
bleak ambience of the story. The principal players were then comparatively
unknown—Burgess Meredith (who was to become a lifelong friend of Stein-
beck) as George with Lon Chaney, Jr., as Lennie. In support were Charles
Bickford as Slim and Betty Field as Curley’s wife. The film profited both from
Aaron Copland’s arresting musical score and a ranch setting which Steinbeck
selected to ensure fidelity. Of this film, Steinbeck observed, “It is a beautiful
job. . . . here Milestone has done a curious, lyrical thing. It hangs together and
is underplayed” (Steinbeck: A Life in Letters 195). Nominated for an Academy
Award, the film still failed commercially. In desperation, United Artists tried
to market it as a “sexploitation” piece, featuring Betty Field in seductive pose.
The 1992 remake with Gary Sinise (who also directed) and John Malkovich
as Lennie is a most worthy contender, faithfully wrought and profiting from
color photography. Variety recorded performances as being “sterling.” Later, a
1981 TV version with former child actor Robert Blake (who portrays George)
and Randy Quaid as Lennie replicates the 1939 original, following Milestone’s
script and dedicated to his memory; he had died a year earlier.
“What attracted you to The Grapes of Wrath?” Peter Bogdanovich asked
director John Ford, who replied: “I just liked it, that’s all . . . being about
simple people—and the story was similar to the famine in Ireland, when they
threw the people off the land and left them wandering on the roads to starve”
(Bogdanovich 76). With such motivation it is not surprising that Steinbeck
found the 1940 film to have “a hard, truthful ring. No punches were pulled—
in fact, with descriptive matter removed, it is a harsher thing than the book,
by far” (Steinbeck: A Life in Letters 195). The powerful, highly moving odyssey
of the migration of a dispossessed family of tenant farmers from the arid lands
of Oklahoma to their rejection by a hostile California had exercised the mind
and heart of Darryl F Zanuck, head of Twentieth Century Fox. He initiated the
acquisition of Steinbeck’s monumental work, but Steinbeck placed his $75,000
film fee in escrow, wary of Zanuck’s intentions. However, no question of
repudiating the contract arose; Zanuck had detailed a personal representative
to visit the migrants to investigate the appalling conditions. When he reported,
“It’s worse than in the book,” Zanuck not only pledged Fox’s support but also
moderated his own politics. He was also responsible for the editing of the
final film. Under John Ford’s direction. Henry Fonda as Tom, Jane Darwell in
the role of Ma Joad, and John Carradine as Casy the Preacher, the film was
to attract Academy Awards for director and supporting actress. And critics
greeted the film rapturously, with Howard Barnes of the New York Herald
Tribune writing: “A genuinely great motion picture which makes one proud
to have even a small share of the affairs of the cinema.” Critic Basil Wright

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Marlon Brando in a studio still from Elia Kazan’s production of Viva Zapata!

spoke for many with his verdict: “A sincere and searing indictment of man ’s
indifference to his fellows.”
In Dubious Battle has not been filmed, although James Cagney had
expressed interest in playing Max, and Pare Lorentz was also keen to be
involved. The next work to be filmed is the little known The Forgotten Village
(1941), notable in that it witnessed the author’s first excursion into writing
directly for the screen. In his preface to the “Book of the Film” Steinbeck
stated that “his working method was to write a very elastic story and then
let the movie crew go into the village, make friends, talk and listen.” After
arrangements for Spencer Tracy to act as narrator failed to materialize, Burgess
Meredith took over the role. What makes the film unique is that the people
involved re-enacted what had actually happened to them. The wise-woman
who affirmed her belief in the bitter airs was a real curandera, a traditional
folk healer or shaman; the teacher who ascribed young Paco’s sickness to the
pueblo well water was the one actually concerned. The film was produced
and directed by Herbert Kline, who had previously made 1939’s Lights Out in
Europe. The New York Board of Censors had decided that the film was indecent
and promoted socialism. Although Steinbeck had issued an indignant rebuttal,
it was only the intervention of Eleanor Roosevelt that resulted in the ban’s
being lifted. America’s entry into World War II and delays attendant upon the
censorship problems, however, militated against this little film. Although it

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received good critical reviews, it attracted a sparse distribution, first opening


on 18 November 1941; interest diminished after the Pearl Harbor massacre.
Benson records that, in 1961, talking to a friend, Steinbeck had commended
The Forgotten Village, adding, “I wish there was some way you could see it”
(Benson 490).
This little comment evidences a major difference between availability
in books and films. Around the time of completion of The Forgotten Village,
Zanuck was to tempt Steinbeck by offering him £5,000 a week “to write a
Hollywood movie,” but he declined in favor of working with Herbert Kline.
1942’s Tortilla Flat was also destined to suffer commercially; the climate
was not conducive to savoring a rustic tale when audiences sought war dramas.
Although it was written in 1935, Tortilla Flat was not filmed at the time.
Even though Steinbeck’s admiration for chivalry, the paisanos of Monterey,
and the adventures of Danny and his friends is warmly evident in the book,
unfortunately, MGM’s film was rather unappealing. The actors simply did
not reflect the story’s warmth–Spencer Tracy never seemed at ease, emerging
as unscrupulous rather than as a disarming rascal; John Garfield still con-
veyed New York’s East-side; and even Akim Tamiroff was not a convincing
paisano, seeming more like a Greek peasant. Even Hedy Lamarr was far too
sophisticated—only Frank Morgan (that latter-day Wizard of Oz) succeeded,
as the Pirate. Steinbeck himself played no part in the filming, which was
interrupted by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
Steinbeck’s original concept for The Moon Is Down was the Japanese
invasion of a small American town—showing them landing by parachute in
the middle of the country—a situation that would shake the complacency of
those living there. The United States government, however, vetoed the idea,
fearing the effect upon morale. Leslie Halliwell evaluated the film positively: “A
Norwegian village resists the Nazis—somber, talkative, intelligent little drama,
the best of the resistance films, shot on the set of How Green Was My Valley,
with snow covering” (Halliwell 594). Director Irving Pichel and the highly
talented photographer Arthur Miller were joined by screenwriter Nunnally
Johnson, who consulted Steinbeck. The writer believed that the stage edition
had emerged as “dull,” and since Johnson had proved his empathy for the
characters and story of The Grapes of Wrath, he authorized him to “tamper
with it” (Millichap 71). According to Millichap, New York Times’s critic Bosley
Crowther found that Nunnally Johnson’s resultant screenplay had “wrung out
any traces of defeatism,” giving more emphasis to the theme “that the will
of a free and noble people cannot be suppressed by violence” (Millichap 75).
Steinbeck received $300,000 for the sale of these film rights.

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Lifeboat (1943) is altogether a different story. Influenced by the ordeal


and heroism of airman Eddie Rickenbacker, whose aircraft was forced down in
the Pacific 600 miles off Samoa in 1942 and who spent twenty-four hours along
with seven other survivors in a rubber lifeboat before being rescued, Steinbeck
planned to invite director Hitchcock to accompany him to interview some
of the survivors. However, Hitchcock’s intentions differed, and the writer’s
concept was abandoned in favor of a more dramatic scenario in which the
U-boat commander was among those in the lifeboat escaping from the ship
that he had sunk. Hitchcock told Francois Truffaut that he had wanted to
show that at that stage in World War II, whereas the allies were disorganized,
the Nazis were determined and united. Among some highly condemnatory
reviews, one by James Agee questioned whether or not Hitchcock had made
technical prowess subordinate to human considerations in the film. When
Steinbeck found the director’s strategy of working within a single set too
restricting, Hitchcock brought in MacKinlay Kantor, who failed to achieve the
sharpness of dialogue Hitchcock required. He was replaced by Jo Swerling,
whose work was supplemented by uncredited Ben Hecht, who tightened up
the scenario. In the New York Times on 6 February 1944, renowned Bosley
Crowther stated: “No more clearly has the peril of writing for the screen been
demonstrated than in the case of Lifeboat, which has caused indignation and
anxiety in many other quarters than this . . . . The fact is now plain that the
film . . . has not the same story that Mr. Steinbeck wrote.” Steinbeck com-
plained to Twentieth Century Fox, maintaining that in his script, “there were
no slurs against organized labor, nor was there a stock-company Negro. . . .
Since this film appears over my name it is painful to me that these sly references
should be ascribed to me” (Steinbeck: A Life in Letters 266). His request that
his name be removed from the film credits was declined. Ironically, he was
nominated for an Academy Award for the production.
Among Steinbeck’s lesser works (and one not published in book form),
A Medal for Benny, a little known 1945 Paramount film telling of the effect of a
posthumously awarded Congressional Medal of Honor to a paisano of Tortilla
Flat was written jointly for the screen by Steinbeck and his long-time friend,
Jack Wagner. The reviewer of The Times captured the spirit of the film: “Since
Benny is a national figure it is necessary in the interests of civic decency that
his father should be provided with a new home, and the inarticulate rebellion
of Mr. J Carrol Naish against what he instinctively feels to be corrupt and
sordid maneuvers constitutes the film’s main strength.” The film rights were
sold for $25,000, the whole being paid to Mr. Wagner’s mother, at Steinbeck’s
request. The authors received an Academy Award nomination, as did Carrol
Naish as Best Supporting Actor. Directed by Irving Pichel (following his work

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The cast of The Moon Is Down (1943), including (center, from left with man in trenchcoat
and moustache, who is E.J. Ballantine): E.J. Ballantine as the traitor George Corell, Cedric
Hardwicke as Col. Lanser, Henry Travers as Mayor Orden, Lee J. Cobb as Dr. Albert Winter,
and Dorris Bowdon as Molly Morden.

on The Moon Is Down), the film was made during a very significant period of
World War II and was received enthusiastically—the New York Times feeling
it to be “a charming film” and with James Agee settling for “endearing.” In
1954, Video Theatre adapted this film to a half-hour format. It again featured
J. Carrol Naish, with Anne Bancroft in the role taken by Dorothy Lamour in
the earlier feature film.
A much more significant work, The Pearl, filmed in 1947, was the
first Mexican film to achieve an international distribution. Director Emilio
Fernandez’s earlier work (Maria Candelaria) had won the 1943 Grand Prize
at Cannes; The Pearl was awarded the International Prize at San Sebastian.
Steinbeck, Fernandez and Jack Wagner combined their efforts to produce a
screenplay. Highly regarded by critics, the film failed commercially. The editor
of England’s Film Review praised the production for having “superb pictorial
composition, lovely photography and sensitive direction.” He felt it was truly
“a poem in celluloid.” Much later, in 2001, a film of The Pearl was made in
America in color, under director Alfredo Zacarias, with actor Richard Harris.
In 1948, Steinbeck’s friend Ed Ricketts was killed by a train when he
attempted to cross railroad tracks in his car. Also, in that year, Steinbeck’s
second marriage collapsed. Struggling to rescue a professional reputation that

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was faltering, he produced a screenplay entitled The Red Pony– a story of a


young boy’s love for his pony; of human fallibility; of suffering, death, and
the pain of growing up. Steinbeck had first written The Red Pony in 1933,
but the film was a composite of only three tales—“The Gift,” “The Leader
of the People,” and “The Promise.” Again it linked Steinbeck and director
Milestone, and again there was a pre-credits scene (originated by the same
director in Of Mice and Men). This consonance extended to the film’s music
arrangement, again furnished by Aaron Copland. Robert Mitchum appeared
to advantage in this 1949 feature made on location at a Salinas Valley ranch;
it was Steinbeck’s first color film. Again shot on location, a TV version of The
Red Pony was made in 1972. Directed by Robert Totton, the film featured Henry
Fonda and Maureen O’Hara. It proved to be a credible presentation. Reverting
to the original film of The Red Pony, Steinbeck judged the 1949 film “good,”
having an acceptable pace—a feature he had found lacking in the film of The
Pearl.
The year 1949 was significant, too, because Steinbeck, along with three
colleagues (including Robert Capa) formed a production company, World
Video. Both Elia Kazan and Burgess Meredith expressed their desire to work
for the organization. This enterprise failed, but its very existence illustrated the
degree to which that film had almost preoccupied Steinbeck.
By 1952, Steinbeck had married Elaine Anderson Scott—a union that
proved most happy—and had written and published East of Eden, part allegory
and part autobiography—a major undertaking. Also, that same year, Steinbeck
appeared as narrator to a film of O’Henry’s Full House, a Twentieth Century Fox
compendium piece, notable for Charles Laughton’s appearance in The Cop and
the Anthem. This role proved a strain to Steinbeck, who appeared unnatural.
Although he vowed never to repeat the experience, he succumbed again in
1961, when he appeared once more as narrator; the incentive on that occasion,
though, was that he was involved with one of his own works.
More importantly, that year he produced Viva Zapata! based on the life
of a Mexican revolutionary who rose from peasant to leader of his country, but
who suffered a betrayal resulting in his death. While Steinbeck had worked on
such a screenplay for several years, it only came to fruition when he discussed it
with Elia Kazan. With Zanuck’s blessings, work began under Kazan’s direction.
Marlon Brando delivered a fine performance in the title role, and Anthony
Quinn in support as Eufemio, won an Academy Award. Steinbeck himself won
a further nomination. Despite his strenuous efforts to secure the titular role for
Pedro Armendariz, the Mexicans refused to be involved in the project, and the
film was made along the Texas side of the Rio Grande. The music scored by
Alex North was from authentic mariachi tunes recorded by Kazan in Mexico.

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Elia Kazan also directed East of Eden, with the last quarter of this saga
being filmed in 1955. Utilizing angular shots and doing all possible to produce
a cogent piece, Kazan was nonetheless limited by James Dean’s mannered
acting as Cal. Irritation on the set helped to give a validity to the scenes between
Raymond Massey (as the father) and the rebellious, sullen son. Nominated
for an Academy Award, James Dean lost the Oscar to that intuitive essay in
loneliness immortalized by Ernest Borgnine in Paddy Chayefsky’s Marty. Jo
Van Fleet, a newcomer to the screen, won as Best Supporting Actress for her
perceptive playing as the mother. Pauline Kael found the film, “amazingly
high-strung, feverishly poetic . . . violent moments and charged scenes without
much coherence.”
When Steinbeck announced that it was “probably the best motion pic-
ture I have ever seen,” one concludes that either he was being perverse—
even provocative—or that his values had changed. In truth, he was hurt and
bitter; he had felt humiliated in his second marriage, and he still resented the
almost wholesale rejection of his inventive Burning Bright. That novelette—
Steinbeck’s third—was intended as a religious parable; originally, it had been
tentatively called “Everyman.” It not only failed as a book, but Peter Lisca
quotes the conclusion of play’s producer that “it was dead the first night” (Lisca
154). Similarly, the 1981 eight-hour, multi-million dollar TV production of
East of Eden lacks depth, yet it contains magnificent scenery. Jane Seymour
and both Timothy and Sam Bottoms gave adequate performances in an over-
long, over-wrought serial.
The 1957 screenplay of The Wayward Bus, credited to Ivan Moffat,
was based on Steinbeck’s novel with the same title. Imbued with religious
symbolism, it provides a nondescript view of an assortment of passengers and
their reactions to changes and disclosures. Hombre tackled this theme much
better, as did Ship of Fools. Unfortunately, Frenchman Director Victor Vicas
ignored Steinbeck’s fairly straightforward narrative by injecting symbolic close-
ups and arty angles. Steinbeck, Kazan and Eugene Solow (screenwriter of Of
Mice and Men) had all attempted to refine the script, but it was to no avail:
reception of the film was negative.
In 1961, Barnaby Conrad, writer and producer, combined with Direc-
tor Louis Bispo to film Flight. Unfortunately, the length of this feature film
deterred distributors, and to achieve a release, Mr. Conrad cut the piece to
a twenty-minute version. Steinbeck had suggested his own appearance to
support the filmmakers, commenting: “The most exact translation of story
to film I have ever seen. There is no softening, no sweetening, no attempt
to sentimentalize” (Benson 887).

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Dan Dailey as Ernest Horton and Jayne Mansfield as Camille Oakes in a Twentieth-Century
Fox studio movie still from The Wayward Bus (1957).

Cannery Row did not appear as a film until 1982. Isolated attempts to
film the novel shortly after its 1945 publication proved abortive, but were
revived when the successive work, Sweet Thursday, emerged in 1954. Rodgers
& Hammerstein produced a stage musical, entitled Pipe Dream, based on
both novels, and the contract also attracted related film rights. However, the
enterprise closed fairly quickly; nor were any film offers forthcoming.
In 1976, a screenwriter, David S Ward, interested a producer in the
project, and the combined screenplay, simply entitled Cannery Row, emerged
under MGM’s banner with Nick Nolte as Doc. Narration was by John Huston,
and David Ward undertook both screenwriting and direction. Photography
was by famed Sven Nykvist. Halliwell was brutal in his dismissal of this film.
He wrote: “Badly out of its time, this sentimental realism . . . emerged as a
bloodless, stultifying entertainment” (Halliwell 141).
In response to my inquiry in 1969, Steinbeck’s Literary Agent stated that
The Winter of Our Discontent “has not been filmed and I’m not sure it ever will
be.” But fourteen years later it was. Prepared for TV in 1983, the feature starred
Donald Sutherland, but although it impressed, it rarely inspired. However, the
Los Angeles Times found Mr. Sutherland’s performance to be “luminous.”

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In 1966, Clifton Fadiman welcomed Steinbeck’s last published work,


America and Americans, as “a book to reflect on—a book to treasure”; and the
film of this contemporary, heartfelt and incisive portrait of his country was
first presented on 3 December 1967 by the NBC TV Network. At his personal
request, Henry Fonda appeared in the film and also undertook the narration.
He commented that “John Steinbeck writes the most beautiful words I have
ever read.” Through the generosity of NBC International, and in the presence
of representatives of the United States Embassy, The Communications Guild
was privileged to present the U.K. premiere at the Mayfair Hotel, London on
20 April 1972.
Travels with Charley was first screened in America by the NBC TV
network on Sunday, 17 March 1968, with Henry Fonda providing the voice
of Steinbeck. To record the journey, film crews traveled through twenty states
to recreate the adventures and encounters of Steinbeck and his companion, his
wife’s poodle, Charlie. Within the confines of one hour, the film did justice to
Steinbeck’s work, condensing the first three-quarters of his text. Six animated
cartoon sequences are incorporated; original music written by Rod McKuen
was arranged by John Scott Trotter.
In his postscript to Viva Zapata! Robert E. Morsberger draws attention
to further Steinbeck works filmed in 16mm gauge in 1989 and made available
on video much later. Each short story—The Chrysanthemums, Raid, and Molly
Morgan (from The Pastures of Heaven)—runs thirty minutes.
Over the years, Steinbeck had contemplated diverse personal projects,
such as 1942’s Bombs Away, a documentary on training bomber crews, which
was sold to Hollywood, and for which Steinbeck received $250,000 that he
gave to The Air Forces Aid Society. Ibsen’s The Vikings with Ingrid Bergman
followed in 1952, with a 1958 Don Quixote, starring Henry Fonda, and, for
a short time, in 1945, the elusive Wizard of Maine. In 1940, Steinbeck had
assisted Charlie Chaplin with The Great Dictator, but had declined further
involvement.
From Of Mice and Men in 1937 to Pipe Dream in 1955, and with The Moon
Is Down and Burning Bright in the interim, the theatre also had occupied John
Steinbeck’s mind—noteworthy since these interpolations, when added to the
films, not only stand as evidence of Steinbeck’s dedication to the Performing
Arts, and since numerically such pieces actually exceed his books.
In 1959, John Steinbeck revealed his understanding of true proficiency
in the cinema: “I’ve been lucky with the men who put my books into films—
men like Ford and Kazan and Milestone.” But it was Kazan who became close
to the author, and who concluded:

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I don’t think he should have been writing plays, I don’t think he


should have hung out with show people. He was a prose writer, at
home in the west, with land, with horses, or in a boat; in the city he
was a dope. . . . His editor Pat Covici said to Steinbeck, late in life:
“There are two places that proved poisonous to you, Hollywood and
New York.” (Kazan 843)

These statements may be over-simplifications, and although Steinbeck’s per-


sonal contribution to film is comparatively minor, it ranks far higher than
similar efforts by Hemingway, Scott Fitzgerald, or Faulkner.
Many years ago, the eminent actor Edward G Robinson wrote to me,
stating that he shared my philosophy: “I agree with you that motion pictures
speak a universal language. While the primary purpose is entertainment, I do
believe at the same time they serve to bring the world a little bit closer.” Using
this mechanism of film to further propagate the words of the man who, in his
Nobel acceptance speech declared that he saw his destiny as one to “declare
and to celebrate man’s proven capacity for greatness of heart and spirit,” must
augur well for peace in our time.

Works Cited and Consulted


Benson, Jackson J. The True Adventures of John Steinbeck, Writer: A Biography. London:
Heinemann, 1984.
Bogdanovich, Peter. John Ford. London: Studio Vista, 1967.
Burrows, Michael. John Steinbeck and His Films. Cornwall, UK: Primestyle, 1970.
Halliwell, Leslie. Halliwell’s Film, Video And DVD Guide 2005, 20th Edition. Ed. John
Walker. London: HarperCollins, 2004.
Halliwell, Leslie. Halliwell’s Who’s Who In the Movies, 14th Edition. Ed. John Walker.
London: HarperCollins, 2001.
Kazan, Elia. Elia Kazan: A Life. London: Pan Books, 1989.
Lisca, Peter. John Steinbeck: Nature and Myth. New York: T.Y. Crowell, 1978.
Millichap, Joseph R. Steinbeck and Film. New York: Frederick Ungar, 1983.
The Motion Picture Guide: 1927-1984. 12 vols. Ed. Jay Robert Nash and Stanley Ralph
Ross. Chicago: Cinebooks, 1987.
Parini, Jay. John Steinbeck: A Biography. London: Heinemann, 1994.
Steinbeck, John. Steinbeck: A Life in Letters. Ed. Elaine Steinbeck and Robert Wallsten.
London: Penguin, 2002.
——. Zapata. Ed. And with a commentary by Robert Morsberger. London: Penguin,
2001.
Truffaut, Francois. Hitchcock. London: Martin Secker and Warburg, 1968.

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Filmography
1939 Of Mice and Men
1940 The Grapes of Wrath
1941 The Forgotten Village
1942 Tortilla Flat
1943 The Moon Is Down
Lifeboat
1945 A Medal for Benny
1947 The Pearl
1949 The Red Pony
1952 Viva Zapata!
1955 East of Eden
1957 The Wayward Bus
1961 Flight
1967 America and Americans (16mm)
1968 Travels with Charley (16mm)
1973 The Red Pony
1981 Of Mice and Men
1981 East of Eden
1982 Cannery Row (incorporating Sweet Thursday)
1983 The Winter of Our Discontent
1989 The Chrysanthemums (16mm)
1989 Raid (16mm)
1989 Molly Morgan (16mm)
1992 Of Mice and Men
2001 The Pearl

M ICHAEL B URROWS is a film historian and philanthropist living in Cornwall,


England.

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