Trivia for
The Grapes of Wrath (1940)

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• The production had a fake working title, "Highway 66", so that the shoot of the controversial novel would not be effected by union problems. Much of the dire straits portrayed in the film continued during and after the release of the movie.
  
  
• John Steinbeck loved the movie and said that Henry Fonda as Tom Joad made him "believe my own words".
  
  
• The film shot for seven weeks.
  
  

• John Ford banned all makeup and perfume from the set on the grounds that it was not in keeping with the tone of the picture.
  
  
• While filming the Joads' car traveling down the highway, John Ford wanted to add a shot showing the large number of caravans heading west, so the film's business manager stopped actual cars making the trek and paid the drivers five dollars to escort the Joads' jalopy for the cameras.
  
  
• The film was one of the first to be voted onto the National Film Registry (1989).
  
  
• Non-US audiences saw the film with a prologue which explained about the effects of the Depression and the Oklahoma Dust Bowl.
  
  
• Prior to filming, producer Darryl F. Zanuck sent undercover investigators out to the migrant camps to see if John Steinbeck had been exaggerating about the squalor and unfair treatment meted out there. He was horrified to discover that, if anything, Steinbeck had actually downplayed what went on in the camps.
  
  
• The novel's original ending was far too controversial to be even considered for a film in 1940. It involved Rose-of-Sharon Rivers (Dorris Bowdon) giving birth to a stillborn baby and then offering her milk-filled breasts to a starving man, dying in a barn.
  
  
• The budget for the film was $750,000.
  
  
• Noah Joad simply vanishes after the scene of the family swimming in the Colorado River. In the book, Noah tells Tom he has decided to stay by the river. In the film, his disappearance is never explained.
  
  
• A sequel was in the works at Fox the year after the film's release. It was tentatively named after the first film's fake working title, "Highway 66".
  
  
• Henry Fonda, still struggling to became a big Hollywood star, tried to avoid being a contract player for 20th Century-Fox because he wanted the ability to independently choose his own projects (an increasing number of stars at the time were trying to gain such independence). But when the much-coveted part of Tom Joad was offered to him, Fonda hesitantly gave in and signed a contract to work with the studio for seven years because he knew it would be the role of a lifetime.
  
  
• Darryl F. Zanuck paid $100,000 for the rights to John Steinbeck's novel - a staggering amount of money at the time. Steinbeck only allowed the rights to be sold under the proviso that the filmmakers should show the material due reverence and treat the project responsibly.
  
  
• Beulah Bondi was tested for the role of Ma Joad. Bondi, believing that she had the part, reportedly bought an old jalopy and moved to Bakersfield (CA) to live among the migrant workers in order to research the role.
  
  
• Although the script conformed to the provisions of the Production Code, a number of potential "problems" had to be addressed. The list of suggested alterations or eliminations included a warning "not to characterize Muley as insane", the rewording of "certain of the lines which have reference to Rosasharn's pregnancy", the removal of a "toilet gag about Grandma", the elimination of "specific mention of Tulare County [California]" and a request not to identify a town as "Pixley" (a town in Tulare County, CA, notorious for its ill treatment of migrant workers). It was also suggested that the film not show "Tom killing the deputy in self-defense".
  
  
• Banks and the large farming corporations that controlled most California farms were not keen on the original novel (it was banned in some states and in several counties in California, and the book was not carried in the municipal library of author John Steinbeck's home town of Salinas, California, until the 1990s) and were even less thrilled that a film was being made of it. The Associated Farmers of California called for a boycott of all 20th Century-Fox films, and Steinbeck himself received death threats.
  
  
• The pro-union stance of the film led to both John Steinbeck and John Ford being investigated by Congress during the McCarthy "Red Scare" era for alleged pro-Communist leanings.
  
  
• 2006: Ranked #7 on the American Film Institute's 100 Most Inspiring Movies of All Time.
  
  
• 2007: The American Film Institute ranked this as the #23 Greatest Movie of All Time.
  
  
• Banned in the Soviet Union by Joseph Stalin in 1940 because of its showing that even the poorest Americans could afford a car.
  
  
• Producer Darryl F. Zanuck knew that Henry Fonda was desperate for the part of Tom Joad, so he let it be known that he was going to offer the part to Tyrone Power. Fonda pleaded with Zanuck for the part, and in order to get it Zanuck talked him into signing an eight-picture deal with 20th Century-Fox.
  
  
• Darryl F. Zanuck was heavily involved in all aspects of the production, as he saw it as a personal project. In fact, so meticulous and carefully thought-through was his editing of Nunnally Johnson's screenplay that Johnson himself praised Zanuck for his attention to detail.
  
  
• Unusual for John Ford, he allowed Darryl F. Zanuck to supervise the editing. Indeed, Zanuck remains one of the very few producers to actually draw praise from the normally rather critical director.
  
  

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