The Migrants

Cloris Leachman is the matriarch of this family, that travels wherever the work is. When it's spring, it's time to be here to pick that, Or, if it's fall, we go south. Sissy Spacek, Ron Howard, Cindy Williams, Ed Lauter, and David Clennon costar in this TV movie that is painfully real and is based on a Tennessee Williams story. Bad luck seems to find them and they are always behind the eight ball with no sign of change in sight. Cloris Leachman is a standout and is totally in character. It's amazing just how much she is immersed in her role, looks-wise and in terms of desperation of her situation. And, it's interesting to see Ron and Cindy paired together, before being in American Graffiti and Happy Days together. This may be disturbing for some, but it is one TV-movie that should never be forgotten.

Acclaimed TV-movie from CBS features Ron Howard as the eldest child in a gypsy-living, crop-picking family who dreams of his independence, guiltily planning for the day when he can make a life for himself in the city--far away from the long, sweaty days out in the fields. Lanford Wilson adapted the short story by Tennessee Williams, showing us the hardships behind this caravan of migrating workers who pick up and go from one crop to the next in the southeast. Still, with such attention to the milieu, one feels the character content comes up short. Wilson and director Tom Gries spend so much time telegraphing us that one of the workers is sick, we have nothing much to look forward to except his demise (and the burden this will place upon matriarch Cloris Leachman). Meanwhile, Howard's relationship with factory-line worker Cindy Williams (reunited from 1973's "American Graffiti") is sketchy--and it comes as a surprise to learn later that she's 'underage'. Emmy-nominated Leachman performs her role without affectation or vanity, and her wry way with a line of dialogue (neither saint nor sinner) ultimately makes the film worth-seeing, although it isn't an emotional or touching picture, as it was undoubtedly meant to be. Wilson and Gries haven't shaped the characters with care, introducing us to them within a flurry of activity. The effect is off-putting, and the finale--a hopeful question mark--doesn't begin to resolve the central family's issues.

As a senior at an all-boys Jesuit high school, we the entire student body were required to watch this. It was part of the school's relentless insistence that we in all ways should be Men for Others.

I've remebered this film ever since as my awakening awareness of the poor.

Recommended by a friend, I reluctantly watched this film, dreading the thought of watching familiar actors reenact the Joad family. Instead, I was mesmerized by a life made real by the extraordinary talents of Cloris Leachman and Ron Howard. This IS the Joad family, as they existed in more recent times in the South. The film continues to haunt my thoughts years later.

This movie was filmed at various locations in Cumberland County, New Jersey, where I've lived my whole life. I was five years old when this movie was filmed. I remember going with my parents one time to see the cast and film crew shoot a scene in a field near where I grew up. After the filming concluded, the cast signed autographs for fans at the local fire hall. It was all really great having Hollywood come to a small town like ours.