This late-Depression road movie was criticized for scriptwriter Dalton Trumbo’s leftist touches, but these touches are precisely what sets it apart today. Four strangers form a vagabond community and travel west aboard freight cars. This film marked the screen debut of Glenn Ford as Joe, one of Trumbo’s natural-born suckers whose innocence is a form of grace and whose misogyny is cured by Anita, an indocumentada (a refugee from Franco’s Spain) played by Jean Rogers. It’s worth the price of admission just to watch a bum (Richard Conte, also making his debut) craft a free meal from a cup of hot water and countertop condiments at a diner.