Bound for Glory
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. Much of the film is based on Guthrie's attempt to humanize the desperate Okie Dust Bowl refugees in California during the Great Depression.
Plot
In 1936, Great Depression, Woody Guthrie sits at a gas station, playing guitar as other men talk about leaving town for California or the Texas Gulf Coast. When a customer named Collister offers $1 to anyone who can tell him something Woody wins the dollar by figuring out Collister's worries about the future. Later, as Woody paints a store sign, his wife, Mary, encourages him to keep painting because it is his only skill that makes money, but he annoys her by putting down his brushes and picking up his guitar. Two ladies take Woody to a despondent woman who refuses to drink, and he uses psychology to get her to swallow a glass of water. At the dinner table, Mary complains that Woody should look for work, so he walks around town, offering to paint signs. When a store owner hires him to paint a white-on-black sign, Woody paints it white-on-red instead, so the owner refuses to pay him.