20th Century Fox/MGM DVD Clearance Sale (series)

Bound for Glory

DVD Features:

Major Awards:

Academy Awards - Best Cinematography (1976)

Product Description:

Hal Ashby's film of Woody Guthrie's autobiography, BOUND FOR GLORY, recounts the protest singer's life starting when he's a young man with a wife and two children, trying to find work as a sign painter in the Dust Bowl-ravaged Texas of the 1930s. He leaves his wife, Mary (Melinda Dillon), with her family and, like thousands of others, rides the rails to California. Along the way he sees the brutal treatment of men by the railroad's hired thugs before being thrown into a hard life in the migrant workers camps of the San Fernando Valley. He begins to write songs about everything he's seen and joins Ozark Bule on the radio, not just singing about union organizing, but actually going to meetings and brawling with union-busting goons. When the radio station management, as a result of pressure from its advertisers, tells Woody--who's now attracting a following with his protest songs and ballads about the lives of oppressed people--that he can't do those songs, he gives up the radio program and decides to ride the rails to New York to seek a larger audience for his music. David Carradine, as Guthrie, does his own singing, giving an intimacy to the songs that might have been lost by dubbing. The award-winning cinematography by Haskell Wexler captures both the bleakness of the Great Depression and the beautiful grandeur of America, exactly what Guthrie expressed in his songs.

Plot Synopsis:

Based on the life of Woody Guthrie, BOUND FOR GLORY explores the social, economic, and political hardships that molded his beliefs. Beginning with his life in Texas and his horrific experiences in the Southwest Dust Bowl, the film follows Guthrie as he moves to California to begin his radio career. There he discovers the political power of music, which he harnesses by writing and singing his own songs about human suffering.

Plot Keywords:

Biography | Folk Songs / Music | Musical | On-The-Road | Poverty | Theatrical Release

Production Notes:

• Theatrical Release: November 5, 1976.

Cast and Crew: