Bound for Glory (1976 film)

Bound for Glory
Theatrical release poster by Tom Jung
Directed by	Hal Ashby
Screenplay by	Robert Getchell
Based on	Bound for Glory 1943 book by Woody Guthrie
Produced by	Robert F. Blumofe Harold Leventhal
Starring	David Carradine Ronny Cox Melinda Dillon Gail Strickland Randy Quaid
Cinematography	Haskell Wexler
Edited by	Pembroke J. Herring Robert C. Jones
Music by	Leonard Rosenman (conductor and music adaptor) George Brand Joan Biel Guthrie Thomas Ralph Ferraro
Distributed by	United Artists
Release date	December 5, 1976 (1976-12-05) (United States)
Running time	147 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$10 million[1] or $7 million[2]

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.^[3] Much of the film is based on Guthrie's attempt to humanize the desperate Okie Dust Bowl refugees in California during the Great Depression.

Bound for Glory was the first motion picture in which inventor/operator Garrett Brown used his new Steadicam for filming moving scenes.^[4] Director of photography Haskell Wexler won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography at the 49th Academy Awards.

All of the main events and characters, except for Guthrie and his first wife, Mary, are entirely fictional. The film ends with Guthrie singing his most famous song, "God Blessed America for Me" (subsequently retitled "This Land Is Your Land"), on his way to New York, but, in fact, the song was composed in New York in 1940 and forgotten by him until five years later.