George Milton and Lennie Small are migrant workers in the 1930s Depression. Lennie is mentally retarded and George looks after him. While working as hands on a Western ranch, they dream of owning their own ranch and the opportunity may be available. Their current ranch is owned by a sadistic man who has a flirtatious wife. –IMDb
Lewis Milestone (born Lewis Milstein in the Ukraine) came to the U.S. as a teenager, and while in the Army during World War I was an assistant director on training films. In Hollywood, he began working as an editor, and after writing and assistant directing in the early 1920s, he helmed his first feature for producer Howard Hughes, Seven Sinners (1925). Milestone’s comedy Two Arabian Knights (1927) was widely admired, but the director didn’t hit his stride until 1930 with All Quiet on the Western Front, his landmark adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque’s war novel. In the ‘30s Milestone scored major achievements in several genres, including comedy (The Front Page), musical (Hallelujah, I’m a Bum), and espionage (The General Died at Dawn); he capped the decade with his classic drama Of Mice And Men (1939), adaptated from John Steinbeck’s novella. Notable among his work of the 1940s and ‘50s are the war films Edge of Darkness (1943), The Purple Heart (1944), A Walk in the Sun (1946), and… read more
Nothing is added and quicker to read the book itself. An unnecessary adaptation.
Director Lewis Milestone's winning adaptation of John Steinbeck's classic novel is melodramatic, certainly; but the extraordinary story and characters and strong performances pull it through - Lon Chaney Jr. is particularly superb, it's a shame he was never given a career opportunity like this again. As dated as it may be, the story is strong enough to make it a classic.
