This version of Steinbeck's novel drew quite a lot of attention in its day, not because of its financial success (it was a box-office failure) but because it was considered very daring of Hollywood to film a story with such an uncompromising finale. If one sees the film nowadays, however,one glaring, seemingly unimportant compromise is obvious----the character "Curley's Wife",the only woman in the film---has been given a name...Mae. Steinbeck deliberately leaves her nameless,partly for symbolic value,but also to deliberately and permanently link her with her brutal,stupid,bullying husband. The approach to the story in this version is deliberately pseudopoetic and larger than life---while Aaron Copland's beautiful, folkloric,"typically Amercan" score plays in the background, we see shots of rabbits and squirrels scurrying about.(The music soars to a huge climax in the final scene---in other versions that scene is played without a note of music.) The acting is perhaps deliberately somewhat artificial, but in a few cases gets downright hammy. B-Western star Bob Steele plays Curley with a hilarious, permanent sneer and a skulking walk; he also delivers his lines like a typical villain in a melodrama. Instead of playing Curley's wife as the pathetic yet lonely and almost unconsciously sexy woman that Sherilynn Fenn made her in the 1992 film, Betty Field makes her obnoxiously slutty, whiny, loud and shrill, and we are annoyed and repelled at her instead of being made to empathize with her plight. Charles Bickford is excellent in his role. Burgess Meredith is quite good as George,at least for the most part,but either he or Lewis Milestone miscalculated horribly in the scene in which he makes his ultimate tragic decision---his popeyed expression as he comes to this decision is unintentionally sidesplitting. <br /><br />This does contain Lon Chaney, Jr's. best performance (as Lennie), but he falls short of John Malkovich's 1992 portrayal. Horrifying as it may sound, Chaney's 1939 Lennie has been the subject of countless cartoon parodies--it's the inspiration for all those cartoons that feature a huge bear saying "I done a clever thing,George, duh,I done a clever thing", as well as Bugs Bunny's abominable snowman saying "I will hug him and pet him and squeeze him and hug him and pet him and squeeze him,and ", well.....you get the idea. <br /><br />Still, this film is worth checking out as an example of how John Steinbeck's novel (and stage play) was performed in the 1930's.