The Plow That Broke the Plains (1936) User Reviews

The Cause of the Dust Bowl

[romanorum1 · 7/10 · 14 September 2010]

Some of the old time westerns often featured the late 19th century struggles between the cattlemen, who fought for the open range for cattle grazing, and the families of homesteaders / farmers who wanted to break ground and fence-off their respective properties. It was easy to observe early on that, in the movies, the homesteaders were the "good guys." History tells us rather differently, at least in one respect: Clearing the prairie of its great grasses was highly ecologically damaging and far worse than sporadic overgrazing.

This factual documentary was produced to explain the reasons for the dust bowl that occurred in the Great Plains in the 1930s USA. The affected area was vast: 625,000 square miles (400 million acres) that included ten states from Montana to Texas. By 1880 the settlers had cleared the prairie of the Indians and the buffalo. What did the settlers do with the land? Well, there was grazing and farming, and all seemed fine until the first drought. But the rains did return, and as long as there was enough water, agricultural ignorance was put on the back burner. And when the USA went to war against Germany in 1917, there was great demand for grains, especially wheat, and prices soared. Farmers were encouraged to break more sod, seed, and grow even more wheat, which was needed for the allied war effort. Even after the war there was speculation, and more and more settlers were encouraged to purchase more and more "cheap" land, which was placed under cultivation. By 1923, much of the old, hardy grasslands became wheat lands. Times were good; after all it was the new "Jazz Age." Then the lands, without many rivers or streams, experienced a worse drought than that of the 1890s. There were no longer the long, natural grasses to hold the moisture against the wind. Being hardy and with deep root systems, the natural grasses were naturally resistant to many kinds of weather conditions, especially drought. They stood their ground. On the other hand, wheat, with shallower root systems, requires occasional rainfall in the course of a season. When the amount of rainfall began to drop precipitately in the 1930s, the weaker rooting systems of the wheat plant gave way. There was nothing left to protect the dry topsoil, which was blown into large black clouds, the "dust bowl." Then there was the great departure: homesteaders abandoned their lands and animals for western places in order to start over. This film shows that government intervention was meant to encourage methods of erosion-prevention farming. Overall the film is a very good visual record of a difficult time in the Midwest. The music is dramatic, the narrative limited, and the photography excellent!

THE PLOW THAT BROKE THE PLAINS {Short} (Pare Lorentz, 1936) ***

[Bunuel1976 · 7/10 · 7 January 2014]

This is a well-regarded documentary whose director is better-known as a movie reviewer. Though not readily translating into entertainment, the film has historical and educational value even today: it deals with the way the vast American grasslands were, first, laboriously cultivated – from which teeming cities emerged – and, then, badly damaged – at the pretext of inevitable progress – resulting in what came to be known as "The Dustbowl".

While I was wary at first that it would be a celebration of collective farming a' la the recently-viewed EARTH (1930), the half-hour short does not smooth over the pitfalls involved; indeed, it ultimately comes across as a cautionary exercise…yet one that looks hopefully towards the future (as the problem, we are told, is already being earnestly tackled by the Government). Incidentally, this subject often found its way into both literature and commercial cinema – most notably in John Ford's superb 1940 adaptation of John Steinbeck's "The Grapes Of Wrath".

Important historical images

[julie_ranae · 7/10 · 12 March 2008]

Not quite ten years past the first full length talkie, this movie commentary could easily be imagined as written with intertitles. As another nod to the silent tradition, the music conveys much of the story, partly out of habit and partly to avoid they criticisms from the film industry had mounted against the film while still in production that the movie was simply a propaganda piece financed by the Roosevelt administration. The filmed images were necessary to educate people around the nation, be they politicians who railed against yet another alphabet organization to conserve the plains, or to the common people who saw the haunted "Okies" with sand blasted cars and faces coming to their states as unwelcome. For this reason, the film deserves to be preserved and viewed.

If you are having trouble finding the film, go to Wikipedia and click on "The Internet Archives" hypertext to see the movie online. If you want to get to the heartbreaking stories behind this enormous catastrophe, do read "The Worst Hard Time" by Timothy Egan, as recommended by another commentator. You will even get the background story to the mustachioed plowman and his family.

Powerful...

[dday229 · 26 January 2007]

The reviewer above doesn't know much about what happened in the Dust Bowl in the 1930s. By all means watch this film and listen very closely. You can almost hear the chainsaws in the Amazon from here...

This film is a priceless collection of imagery that documents what happened to that region of the country. A region that has never fully recovered from the damage humans did to it.

It is a stark look at what degenerated into a self inflicted hell, which was by no means entirely the fault of the farmers. They simply didn't know what they were doing until it was too late. As usual, the one man who stood up and tried to point out what had occurred was decried as a crank.

Thank goodness Roosevelt commissioned this film or we would have precious few moving images of the desolation that resulted.

(Also recommend: The Worst Hard Time. The untold story of those who survived the Great American Dust Bowl, by Timothy Egan.)

Important Documentary of History!

[Sylviastel · 7/10 · 6 April 2012]

Pare Lorentz was unknown until he made documentaries during the Great Depression on the devastation of the Dust Bowl in the Southern Plains. This film featured an actual farmer whose son is in one of the Dust Bowl documentaries as well. The documentary is short but focuses on the history of the Dust Bowl and the plow that destroyed the land in the plains. I am disappointed that it is short nor does it interview any of the dust bowl survivors. The Dust Bowl is an important part of understanding why it happened and how the plains were destroyed to learn to respect the land and the soil. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's program hired artists like film directors and photographers to explain the disaster to the rest of the country and the world in order to support to help the Southern Plains where wheat ruled supreme until the black blizzard where billions of tons of sand and dirt blew across the country, causing death and destruction, and where John Steinbeck's novel, "The Grapes of Wrath," has a family who migrated west in search of a better life.

Beautiful But Dumb

[boblipton · 6/10 · 24 April 2003]

This documentary is beautiful. The photography and music, in fact, are so good, that Howard Hawks seems to have cribbed extensively from it for RED RIVER. But the narration is done in the style of a teaching nun explaining sex to a class of deaf pupils.

What can you learn from this? That people insisted on farming in a land of dust. That the first world war caused the dust bowl and vice versa. That Indians and buffalo need to be cleared and that large explosions cause headlines about President Wilson. That British tanks were used to harvest wheat and that victory parades cause erosion.

Watch this, by all means, but try not to listen to the words.

Odd Bit of History

[gavin6942 · 7/10 · 25 April 2016]

This documentary is about what happened to the Great Plains of the United States and Canada when uncontrolled farming destroyed the soil and led to the Dust Bowl.

The film was sponsored by the United States government (Resettlement Administration) to raise awareness about the New Deal and was intended to cost $6,000 or less; it eventually cost over $19,000 and Lorentz, turning in many receipts written on various scraps of paper, had many of his reimbursements denied and paid for much of the film himself.

This is very fascinating. How true it is, I don't know. Did farming cause the dust bowl, or was weather and environment a factor? We haven't had any repeats, so it seems like there was something of a perfect storm that can be blamed or this.

New Deal doc

[SnoopyStyle · 6/10 · 23 April 2020]

As part of FDR's New Deal, this is a documentary by film critic Pare Lorentz who wanted to try his hand in filmmaking. It's meant to inform farmers of the resettlement program and explain their plight to the wider audience. It charts the progression of mechanized farming over the years until the soil becomes the iconic dust bowl. While this may have broken some new ground, it could be even better narratively. It needs to zero in on a family even if they're fictional. It could show the generations of one family over those years. That would humanize the struggle to the ground level. This is twenty five minutes. It uses the beauty of the vast vistas. It does what it sets out to do.

Note on the Musical Score

[barnesgene · 5/10 · 29 September 2007]

The music for "The Plow that Brioke the Plains" was written by Virgil Thompson, who later became a classical music critic (and a very articulate and provocative one) for the New York Herold Tribune in the middle of the 20th Century. The score incorporated popular melodies, cowboy songs (including one that mega-composer Aaron Copland would also use), and what-have-you in a pastiche that somehow works, at least for the film. It's fairly obvious (to anyone who has spent a lot of time listening to American classical music of that time) that Thompson influenced others even as he was influenced by them. It's a peculiarly American style, with a lilt all its own and a humor that can creep up on you.

The rest of the film, unfortunately, hasn't aged all that well. It's a bit like finding, in a musty old library, a promising monograph on the history of a city or a region written by someone in town who thought he had a gift for such things, only to find adolescent, unsupportable, and insufferable platitudes and a dearth of much-needed facts. And zero -- count 'em, zero! -- specific stories that could have warmed up the narrative, even a little bit. Yuck.

Adult Mickey Mouse Movie

[lmpindy · 4/10 · 23 April 2015]

The version I watched on YouTube had a small prologue in the beginning of the film. This little addition helped add to the films credibility. It provided the viewers a background about what the film is going to be about. This allows us to have a better understanding of the point that the document is trying to get across. By having this prologue, we can also see that the filmmaker knows what he is talking about. The beginning graphic does not necessary add to the films creditability, but it does help add more background knowledge for the audience. The reason why I say it does not add much creditability to the film is because it is not that hard to add a graphic to a documentary. The film seems very real, which is VERY different from most fiction films. The shots are real and do not appear to be touched up or edited to look more aesthetically pleasing. This movie is one of the rare ones that actually look like it was filmed by a camera. I did not care for the style of the music that played over the documentary. Too me, it seemed fake and a little cheesy. I just do not see where it adds to the story. Maybe in a way, and I mean maybe, it makes the story more exciting. It reminded me of what a filmmaker would add in today's age as a joke. I did enjoy the voice over narration at least that seemed to fit the style of the movie. Although I did not like the music, I can see how it would add a more melodramatic feel to the documentary. It had those old school "Mickey Mouse" sounds to it that transforms hard work into a more lively situation. The music was clearly gave the film a more over dramatic element setting to it. Whether this was on purpose or not is unclear to me. It was probably just the style of the time.

Document of history

[gayspiritwarrior · 10/10 · 18 March 2009]

Viewers who insist on judging past attitudes by today's standards will hate or dismiss this film (see several examples.) Whether it was a propaganda piece or an educational one when it was made, it is now one of the most immediate visual records we have of the dust bowl and the migration that resulted from it, a monumental achievement which can never be duplicated, and one which influenced both American music and documentary film-making in an essential way. For many years it was shown in U.S. Schools, which is where I first saw it about 55 years ago, in the early 1950s with their emphasis on bread-basket America and the promise of farming technology. With a proper introduction by teachers, even the jingoistic narration could be made useful. As a record of where our country has been, it's an invaluable, irreplaceable document.

Informative, but way too specific

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 22 April 2016]

"The Plow That Broke the Plains" is an American 25-minute black-and-white documentary with sound. The writer and director here is Pare Lorentz and this is one of his two most known works next to "The River". This one here has its 80th anniversary this year, so it is still from before World War II. And the focus of documentary films back then was on life in America and this is no exception. It actually focuses on agriculture and a natural catastrophe that resulted from dealing with it in a wrong way. Unfortunately, I have to say I did not find it too interesting and I really don't think this is a good watch for audiences in general. You need to have a great interest in agriculture, weather phenomenons or at least American history in general and live in the area depicted in here to appreciate this little movie here. Otherwise, you will be bored just like I was while watching. The monotonous narration wasn't helping either. By the way, the narrator was an actor back then, but also the director of the (in)famous comedy short film "Sex Life of the Polyp". As for "The Plow That Broke the Plains", I do not recommend the watch. It did not really get me interested in the subject.

Impressive, emotionally moving film

[debbie-26 · 27 October 1998]

This film is a companion film to The River, also directed by Pare Lorentz. It is beautifully filmed and has a wonderful score. The topic is soil erosion and the resulting dust bowl conditions during the U.S. depression. This film would be a marvelous choice to show young students who are studying the environment or who are studying U.S. history. It is available from several sources. My video came from Kino Video and also contained The River, a film on a resettlement camp and a film on rural electrification. All were excellent. There is another film Lorentz was involved with called The City. I have seen stills from the movie but have not been able to find a source for it.

Not entirely fair to the nesters...

[jtbenson-56329 · 4/10 · 21 May 2022]

Yep, they got swept up in WWI row crop mania. So did every other section of the country. The South and the Midwest paid for it, too.

Soil conservation practices weren't common knowledge to American farmers back then, either. The American Ag community learned a lot about soil conservation through this calamity. So yeah, this would've played like pure, distilled hindsight back in 1936.

I guess the main thing, though, is that there was a major government initiative starting in the 1880's to get the plains settled and converted into farmland. The Department of Agriculture worked hand in hand with real estate agents and bankers in marketing campaigns. The Expanded Homestead Act of 1909 lured legions of the poor to a part of the country that had been previously understood as a grass-covered desert.

It's important as a visual aid, but it hardly tells the story, and it's easy to understand why this didn't sit well with farmers back then.

A visual historic treasure.

[geez53 · 10/10 · 2 January 2009]

If you're looking for shallow entertainment at the expense of others, waste your wasted time somewhere else. If you're seeking a musically enhanced visual portal into the tragedy that was the great dust bowl, you'll not be disappointed. I don't mean to slight the very apt narration, it is important and adds emphasis at key points. But the true genius of the piece comes through in the stark, black and white imagery riding on the emotional stream of the well selected and edited musical score. Digging into the history of this documentary, i found that the project was funded by us, the US taxpayer, because Hollywood rejected it at every level. When it finally debuted in theaters across the country, it competed well against Hollywood's best at the time. Proving once again, it's not the sponsor of the art who makes it great or successful, it is the artist (in this case artists) who make it great and successful.

A Powerful Work of Documentary Art

[dougdoepke · 7 October 2009]

Note the written prologue states that the film will show what "we" (European settlers) "did" with a half-million square miles of high plains once the swath was "cleared" of Indians and buffalo. Now, the visuals start with waving seas of native grassland, and since the narrative follows an historical timeline, this is a depiction of the land before European settlers arrived. The land may have been harsh and dry—"treeless, windblown, and without rivers or streams"—but it did support rich fields of native grass. In contrast, the visuals end with a stark depiction of the 1930's dustbowl— great clouds of topsoil swept up from a land stripped bare by drought and plowing away of the native grass cover. The images are bleak, searing, and unforgettable.

I call attention to this because a literal reading of the prologue matched against these opening and closing shots is hardly a tale of triumph. The plow that broke the plains really did break them, it appears-- at least to this point in 1936. Hopefully, an improved agronomy has prevented these latter scenes from repeating.

Nonetheless, the documentary itself represents a triumph of artistic imagery (Lorenz) and musical score (Thompson)— and a tribute to its New Deal sponsors. From the first lone rider to the great cattle herds to the mighty plows to soaring WWI demand and finally to the dustbowl and its refugees, the story is elegantly related. I agree that the narration too often goes over the top, but the basic idea works. And I really like that last shot of the lone tree skeleton with its tiny bird's nest looking hopefully to the future. All in all, the 25 minutes adds up to a powerful work of documentary art.

(In passing—I think there are two ways of construing the rather puzzling shots of British WWI tanks plowing forward. In context, the tank armies are juxtaposed with armies of tractors plowing over the plains. Thus, we might view each army as subduing a resistant foe, in the latter case, a difficult land. Or, possibly, the tractors can be taken as a mechanized army of harvesters supplying foodstuffs for a mechanized army of tanks. And even though the two construals may be taken as odes to the power of mechanization, I detect a dark undercurrent to the film as a whole that hardly coincides with the usual tales of "the winning of the West".)

The real Grapes of Wrath

[nickenchuggets · 8/10 · 11 December 2021]

The 1930s were a hard decade for the United States, and for most of the world as well. The great depression crippled the US economy to such an extent that all other countries on earth needed to make sure america was okay financially, or else the global flow of money would be disrupted. During these difficult years, america underwent other problems not necessarily related to the depression, and one of these was the Dust Bowl. This was a catastrophic ecological event during the 1930s which led to widespread crop failures and droughts throughout much of the american heartland, mainly caused by dust storms, hence its name. Even today, not as many people live in this area of america as on the coasts, but it is still arguably the most important part of the country, because lots of food and grain comes from this area. This is why this event was so devastating, because a big source of america's food was now in trouble. This film, made during the time this was all going on, shows what led to the Dust Bowl and what the federal government was doing to fix it. It tells how during world war 1, america supplied france and britain with large amounts of wheat in order to feed soldiers, therefore ensuring a victory over germany, whose food was rapidly being depleted. Post war, it details how farmers took advantage of the land a little too much, and had cattle and other animals eat so much grass that it left many areas barren. Dust storms compounded the problem, and many people didn't even have access to any water. Something had to be done. A government agency called the Resettlement Administration came in and managed to save a great deal of people, mainly by relocating their families to planned communities already set up by the government. Even if they were lucky enough to be moved out, people had to readjust to new homes and lifestyles, which was definitely not easy. President Roosevelt's New Deal did its best to make sure americans who were displaced from their homes in the great plains were compensated, but for a lot of them, more bad times would be ahead. This film is pretty simple and was filmed while the depression was still going on, meaning there was no end in sight yet. Today, we can look back on things like this in order to realize how difficult people's lives were back then, even in a prosperous country like america.

Good Doc

[Michael_Elliott · 28 February 2008]

Plow That Broke the Plains, The (1936)

*** (out of 4)

Pare Lorentz directed and wrote this documentary that takes a look at the Dust Bowl era and the reasons it happened. The opening title sequence gives us a brief story of how good American's always got rid of bad things on their land and the film says what a good thing is was that we drove the Indians off the land. That might not go over too well today but outside of that this is a pretty good short documentary. I've read that some consider this one of the finest ever made but I wouldn't go that far. The cinematography is terrific as is the music score but the telling of the story isn't the greatest I've seen. According to the IMDb five cinematographers were used because no one could give the director what he wanted for the film.

Not appreciated

[CocaCola18 · 24 June 2003]

I would agree with previous comments to this documentary film "The Plow That Broke the Plains" as a story is not the most appreciated piece of work in any country other than the United States of America. This was an environment that effected America in such a big way and I personally cannot imagine what it would have been like during the years of the depression (as I cannot imagine all of the plight in modern history though out the world!)

But what I can appreciate what a nice piece of work this is and should be loved by the world over!

GREAT STUFF

7.9/10

The Plow That Broke the Plains

[Question01 · 11 May 2003]

...This is probably a massively popular film within film fans in the United States of America (especially within the older communities!) ...I think as an english person I think alot of this I don't understand. ...I couldn't appreciate the depression and how bad it was and I think in many ways that was the point of this here documentary ...As a piece of film making though it is beautiful!

6/10

two thumbs in your history book

[fliphop · 10 October 1999]

"First we cleared the Indian. Then we cleared the buffalo." Gosh, didn't they have a UN back in the 1800s to stop ethnic cleansing? Guess not. They could have sent Canadian troops into the Kansas region to stop the predominantly Christian Yankees from murdering the Ethnic Indians. This movie is full of a narrator shouting about 'the wheat' and weird shots of everything from WWI tanks to starving kids and Okies packing their trucks to go west. People say that modern TV news is all flash and no substance. Apparently things were the same in the 1939 though. The end shows how the great Federal Government is setting up agencies to prevent the topsoil from being blown away as it was during the 'dust bowl'. The govt is also helping all those poor refugees from the drought who had to pack up and move west. Yeah Right. This movie should come with a barf bag for anyone who knows anything about the true history of the region.