Of Mice and Men

George and Lennie are itinerant workers moving from ranch to ranch in California. Lennie is huge and strong but a child mentally and does not know his own force. George looks after him, and the two of them get by on the story of a day when they will have land of their own. At the new ranch are the boss's son and his wife. The subject is not friendship but a dream requiring maintenance. The ranch with rabbits that George keeps describing is not a plan but a way of settling Lennie, and both of them know it. The ending asks how far that maintenance goes. The form is plain and close to the stage, mostly in the bunkhouse and the barn. Aaron Copland's score is counted among the works that established the sound of rural America in cinema, and it was his entry into film. The source is John Steinbeck's short novel, filmed only two years after publication. Lewis Milestone was already known for All Quiet on the Western Front. Lon Chaney Jr. did the best work of his career as Lennie; in later years he was mostly in horror films, and this role stands outside that period. Burgess Meredith plays George and Betty Field the wife of the boss's son. Who it is for: viewers who like adaptations of classic American literature. Who it is not for: anyone who wants to go in without knowing the ending; the narrative moves towards something inevitable and does not conceal it.