Bound for Glory (1976 film)

Bound for Glory
Theatrical release poster by Tom Jung
Directed byHal Ashby
Screenplay byRobert Getchell
Based onBound for Glory
1943 book
by Woody Guthrie
Produced byRobert F. Blumofe
Harold Leventhal
StarringDavid Carradine
Ronny Cox
Melinda Dillon
Gail Strickland
Randy Quaid
CinematographyHaskell Wexler
Edited byPembroke J. Herring
Robert C. Jones
Music byLeonard Rosenman (conductor and music adaptor)
George Brand
Joan Biel
Guthrie Thomas
Ralph Ferraro
Distributed byUnited Artists
Release date
  • December 5, 1976 (1976-12-05) (United States)
Running time
147 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$10 million[1] or $7 million[2]

Bound for Glory is a 1976 American biographical film directed by Hal Ashby and loosely adapted by Robert Getchell from Woody Guthrie's 1943 partly fictionalized autobiography Bound for Glory. The film stars David Carradine as folk singer Woody Guthrie, with Ronny Cox, Melinda Dillon, Gail Strickland, John Lehne, Ji-Tu Cumbuka and Randy Quaid.[3] Much of the film is based on Guthrie's attempt to humanize the desperate Okie Dust Bowl refugees in California during the Great Depression.

Bound for Glory was the first motion picture in which inventor/operator Garrett Brown used his new Steadicam for filming moving scenes.[4] Director of photography Haskell Wexler won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography at the 49th Academy Awards.

All of the main events and characters, except for Guthrie and his first wife, Mary, are entirely fictional. The film ends with Guthrie singing his most famous song, "God Blessed America for Me" (subsequently retitled "This Land Is Your Land"), on his way to New York, but, in fact, the song was composed in New York in 1940 and forgotten by him until five years later.

  1. ^ "The Films of Hal Ashby". Beach, Christopher (2009). Detroit, Michigan: Wayne State University Press, p. 176, ISBN 978-0-8143-3415-7.
  2. ^ Harmetz, Aljean (5 December 1976). "Gambling on a Film About the Great Depression". New York Times.
  3. ^ Bound for Glory at IMDb
  4. ^ "Steadicam 30th anniversary press release". Archived from the original on 2014-04-30.