OUR DAILY BREAD is an interesting curio--a historical oddity--but nothing more. I was really surprised when I saw that it currently has a very respectable IMDb score of 7.1 despite being a rather silly and difficult to watch film.
The film begins with a poor couple who are living in the city. Unfortunately, he's out of work and without much drive and they are about to lose their apartment. So they move to the country to try to make a go of it on a dilapidated old farm (which you ASSUME they owned but it turns out they didn't). Once there, they realize the going will be very tough, as they know nothing about farming and the place is in pretty bad shape. Then, luckily, a real farmer and his family just happen to have their car breakdown outside the property and they decide to pool their resources and work together. Realizing the power of multiple hands to run the farm, they decide to invite practically anyone to come there and form a collective society--sort of a small utopia.
From a historical viewpoint, this is a very interesting film because it shows the desperation of the Depression--something rarely seen in films of the era. In fact, despite a huge number of people out of work, Hollywood often featured films about rich folks and exotic places--not out of work homeless people. Aside from the later and much more famous film, THE GRAPES OF WRATH, this is one of the few films to really deal with poverty and a sense of disgust with the American capitalistic system. In fact, the film has very strong enlightened socialist/communist themes running throughout. Considering people were hungry, these sentiments are understandable--but also very strange when seen by many viewers today.
Now had this film been well made, then it would have had more than just a historical oddity. However, unfortunately, the film is occasionally very silly--both for it's wide-eyed idealism (some hope is great, but this was like Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland putting on a Broadway quality show in their uncle's barn) and some really silly plot elements. The worst plot element involved a very slutty and cheap looking "dame" who arrives on the farm. While she seems nothing like any of the collective workers and is totally uncommitted to doing ANYTHING positive (looking like a gangster's moll twenty years and 50 pounds past her prime), she is welcomed in and proceeds to naturally destroy everything. This was silly and impossible to believe--and she seemed like a plot device and not a real person. Why would the farmer leave his lovely wife for such an unpleasant person?! It would be like Michael Douglas dropping Catherine Zeta-Jones for Phyllis Diller!! While this is a bad movie, I still do recommend it for the curious as well as history and economics teachers. It is fascinating and gives a side to American life few today would realize existed--a life of poverty and desperation.
By the way, I am NOT against doing films about poverty or collectives. After all, one of my very favorite Italian films was MIRACLE IN MILAN--a truly wonderful film. My problem with OUR DAILY BREAD was with the awful and heavy-handed writing. Despite being a noble effort, it was just bad.
The film begins with a poor couple who are living in the city. Unfortunately, he's out of work and without much drive and they are about to lose their apartment. So they move to the country to try to make a go of it on a dilapidated old farm (which you ASSUME they owned but it turns out they didn't). Once there, they realize the going will be very tough, as they know nothing about farming and the place is in pretty bad shape. Then, luckily, a real farmer and his family just happen to have their car breakdown outside the property and they decide to pool their resources and work together. Realizing the power of multiple hands to run the farm, they decide to invite practically anyone to come there and form a collective society--sort of a small utopia.
From a historical viewpoint, this is a very interesting film because it shows the desperation of the Depression--something rarely seen in films of the era. In fact, despite a huge number of people out of work, Hollywood often featured films about rich folks and exotic places--not out of work homeless people. Aside from the later and much more famous film, THE GRAPES OF WRATH, this is one of the few films to really deal with poverty and a sense of disgust with the American capitalistic system. In fact, the film has very strong enlightened socialist/communist themes running throughout. Considering people were hungry, these sentiments are understandable--but also very strange when seen by many viewers today.
Now had this film been well made, then it would have had more than just a historical oddity. However, unfortunately, the film is occasionally very silly--both for it's wide-eyed idealism (some hope is great, but this was like Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland putting on a Broadway quality show in their uncle's barn) and some really silly plot elements. The worst plot element involved a very slutty and cheap looking "dame" who arrives on the farm. While she seems nothing like any of the collective workers and is totally uncommitted to doing ANYTHING positive (looking like a gangster's moll twenty years and 50 pounds past her prime), she is welcomed in and proceeds to naturally destroy everything. This was silly and impossible to believe--and she seemed like a plot device and not a real person. Why would the farmer leave his lovely wife for such an unpleasant person?! It would be like Michael Douglas dropping Catherine Zeta-Jones for Phyllis Diller!! While this is a bad movie, I still do recommend it for the curious as well as history and economics teachers. It is fascinating and gives a side to American life few today would realize existed--a life of poverty and desperation.
By the way, I am NOT against doing films about poverty or collectives. After all, one of my very favorite Italian films was MIRACLE IN MILAN--a truly wonderful film. My problem with OUR DAILY BREAD was with the awful and heavy-handed writing. Despite being a noble effort, it was just bad.