Bound for Glory **** (1976, David Carradine, Ronny Cox, Melinda Dillon, Gail Strickland, John Lehne, Randy Quaid, M Emmet Walsh) – Classic Movie Review 3188

Director Hal Ashby’s double Oscar-winning 1976 biopic of early life of Woody Guthrie provides a great star showcase for David Carradine who stars as the legendary vagabond folk singer.

Carradine gives an impressive account of Woody Guthrie, who leaves his devastated Texas home in a Grapes of Wrath-style 1930s dustbowl to try to find work. Inspired by the suffering and strength of America’s oppressed workers, Guthrie goes go on to discover eventual greatness and enduring world fame as one of America’s greatest folk singers.

The soundtrack is of course packed with iconic songs, performed by Carradine, especially, naturally, This Train Is Bound for Glory. This Land Is Your Land is performed by both Carradine and Guthrie.

Ashby ensures that it is a lovingly crafted movie. Haskell Wexler’s strikingly beautiful, pioneering cinematography and Leonard Rosenman’s resonant score were both rightly honoured with Academy Awards at Oscar time, and Robert Getchell’s complex, intelligent screenplay (adapted from Guthrie’s autobiography) was Oscar nominated.

Besides the two Oscar wins, there were four other nominations – for Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Costume Design (William Ware Theiss) and Best Film Editing. There were no Golden Globes, no Baftas, no awards at Cannes. Wexler’s work here includes an early Steadicam sequence involving Carradine getting off a pickup truck and walking through a migrant camp past around 900 extras.

It is an important prestige film that proved too complex, serious, long at 147 minutes and downbeat for audiences and unfortunately failed at the box-office in a flop for director Ashby between his big hits Shampoo and Coming Home.

Also in the cast are Ronny Cox, Melinda Dillon, Gail Strickland, John Lehne, Randy Quaid, M Emmet Walsh, Elizabeth Macey, Allan Miller.

Ashby offered Jack Nicholson the role of Woody Guthrie but he turned it down saying that he didn’t see himself as Guthrie and suggesting Bob Dylan instead.

Judged one of the ten most influential cinematographers in movie history, Haskell Wexler won Best Cinematography Oscars for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Bound for Glory and was nominated for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Matewan (1987) and Blaze (1989). He died peacefully in his sleep on December 27 2015, aged 93. 

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 3188

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