Originally Posted By: Uomo Grassissimo!!
On the escapist front, I throw in a guilty pleasure:

Grant/Russell, "His Girl Friday", a version of "The Front Page" with the reporter as a dame, using the parlance of the period.


Nothing guilty about His Girl Friday, it's one of my favourite comedies and one of the best comedies out of Hollywood, I think. Also great is another Grant screwball comedy The Awful Truth. It Happened One Night still stands up too.

About Grapes of Wrath, Ford's original cut was the shot of Joad walking away into the sunset (makes sense visually too, as it opens with Joad walking towards the camera on the road if I remember right). But Zanuck wanted a more 'upbeat' ending and called Ford, who was out on his fishing boat, and told him to come back and re-shoot the ending but Ford refused and told him to shoot the ending himself if he wanted it so Zanuck did just that!