Bound for Glory (1976)

I knew very little about Woody Guthrie going in. I'm more familiar with his son Arlo, whose songs are less serious (and probably less talented). If you're going to watch another musician biopic, best let it be of a musician you ought to learn about.

Actually, this adaptation from an autobiography is somewhat loose and takes a while to feel like a biopic. It starts with Woody (David Carradine, after many bigger names were considered) at his Texas home with a wife and two daughters, a decade before the birth of Arlo. Between the Dust Bowl and his low fortune as a sign painter, Woody decides to head for California and send for his family afterward. The first hour out of 2:25 largely consists of him traveling broke and looking for a job. When he finally starts getting paid to sing, he must choose whether to do as his sponsors ask or stick to pro-labor union songs about the troubles of migrant farmworkers. The film ends with him heading for New York, not yet having written his most famous number.

In reality, Woody didn't have that sponsor problem very much. Sure, he faced anti-union thugs from time to time, but his radio boss approved his theme. His dismissal in 1939 instead had to do with calling WWII a capitalist fraud. Nevertheless, if that's the only major departure from the truth according to IMDb, then I learned enough to justify my choice of viewing.

Woody comes across as pretty annoying herein. I admire his commitment to the noble cause of improving conditions for the poor, but that's not enough to make him a saint. He leaves his family without saying goodbye except by note. Later he courts another woman (Gail Strickland), seemingly having forgotten his wife (Melinda Dillon) for the nonce. He does send for his family eventually but still spends too little time around them, and he gets angry when his wife complains. They're not the only ones he does wrong by, either: He won't stop playing and singing when an employer has something important and positive to tell him, and sometimes he gets involved in brawls that shouldn't concern him. If I were there near the end, I'd tell him that breaking things was what he did best.

Perhaps the best thing about the movie is its vivid portrayal of the '30s (coming three years after The Sting). I've seen plenty of and from that period, but I'd heard almost none of the nasty details of the Dust Bowl and gave little thought to rural plight. It's kind of like The Grapes of Wrath with a higher-tech focus on a lone vagrant.

It's not much like other famous works directed by Hal Ashby (Being There, Harold and Maude). I put it about on par with The Last Detail. Rather nicely done, never too disturbing, but only moderately entertaining for its runtime.